This year was our first Valentine’s Day as parents which, contrary to what most would believe, was actually quite liberating.  Instead of trying to nail down reservations for dinner at one of the few establishments that don’t mandate the selection of a “Valentine’s Day Menu”, we had made absolutely no plans up until Friday night, two days before the actual day.  I knew that we were going to stay home and that I was going to cook a nice meal – I just hadn’t really given thought to what I was going to make.  For inspiration, I had to reach back into my memory, and ended up completing a circle that had started quite a long time ago.

Almost sixteen years ago, I took my wife (who, at that moment, went by the title of ‘long distance girlfriend’) to New York City for the first time.  I remember that it was still cold, so it may have been this time of year, and it may, in fact, have been a Valentine’s Day trip.

Wanting very badly to make a good impression, I sought out a place for dinner that was, by reputation, romantic, and after some degree of research, decided on One If By Land, Two If By Sea in Greenwich Village.  After breezing right past it, we fumbled around looking for the door, until finally the piano player motioned at us through the bay window and pointed at the entrance.

The setting, an 18th century carriage house, was warm and inviting, with darkly wooded dining rooms lit by the soft glow of vintage chandeliers.  It was the perfect date restaurant, made even more so by the fact that we were seated at a table that overlooked the garden outside, coated white by a layer of freshly fallen snow.  We both ordered the Beef Wellington, a decadent concoction of medium-rare filet mignon, foie gras, and mushrooms, served wrapped in a golden puff pastry crust.  At that time, One If By Land had been known as one of the few dining establishments that served Wellington as an individually wrapped serving of filet.  The meal was excellent from beginning to end, with course after course of outstanding food, attentive service, and all of the pomp and circumstance of an evening that was slightly out of a college student’s budget range.  But it was worth every cent.

At some point after that experience, after we had gotten married, I had tried my hand at making my own Beef Wellington.  The fact that I don’t really remember how it turned out, though, means that it must not have been very well executed.  But, years later, having accrued a bit more kitchen wisdom and experience, I decided, quite on a whim, that I’d try revisiting the recipe, this time as a Valentine’s Day dinner at home.

A classic dilemma facing every cook who attempts a Beef Wellington is timing.  The pastry crust must be baked to a perfect crispy brown, yet the beef must not be allowed to cook much further than medium-rare.  If I remember correctly, this was my downfall on my first attempt – while the pastry had turned out perfectly, cutting into the serving yielded gray, overcooked filet.

To prepare, I reviewed quite a few recipes for Beef Wellington.  Some of them only required you to pan-sear the filet mignon, to develop a crust on all sides, before wrapping it in pastry and popping it into the oven.  Others, though, had you precooking the filet mignon to very nearly serving temperature, so that you would end up wrapping a near-presentation worthy log of beef in pastry, with only the required amount of time in the oven to ensure that the pastry was fully baked.  I ended up taking methods and ingredients from one recipe and melding them with techniques from another.  For the preparation of the beef, I decided to go with the latter method, and roasted the tied bundle until an internal probe thermometer had registered the meat as rare, around 125 degrees, then cooled it down to room temperature with a quick stint out on the deck, covered by foil.  This is the only legitimate use for a deck in winter – as a large walk-out cooler.

Having no foie gras on hand, I instead crafted a mushroom duxelle, which was as simple as spinning some mushrooms, shallots, and thyme in a food processor, then sauteing the mixture in olive oil until most of the moisture has cooked out of it.  It takes about ten minutes, after which you set the duxelle mixture into a fine sieve to allow even more liquid to escape, and to let it cool to room temperature.

Using store-bought puff pastry, I laid a frozen sheet on a plastic mat that we use for rolling and measuring pie dough and waited for it to thaw.  Once I could easily unfold it without risk of breaking it, I rolled it to about half of its original thickness.  Assembly was fun – wielding a rubber spatula, I smeared a small bed of duxelle onto the pastry, arranged the filet mignon on top, topped it with Dijon mustard and more duxelle, then carefully enclosed the puff pastry around it, sealing the seams with beaten egg.  Carefully sliding the probe thermometer into the center of the Wellington, I popped it into the oven, set my timer, and waited.

Since I had already precooked the beef, there was no guesswork involved as to when the Wellington was ready.  I only had to wait until the internal temperature of the meat had risen to my desired measure of doneness, about 130 degrees or so for medium-rare, and by that time the crust had puffed and turned golden brown.  Still, even with all of these safeguards, I was nervous slicing into the finished product.

I took my sharpest blade and held the golden package with one hand as I took one sure swipe down the center of the Wellington.  Seeing the rosy red interior of the beef, I knew that I had found my new Beef Wellington recipe.  I sliced the Wellington into thick slices, about an inch, letting them fall forward onto a spatula like a Stonehenge of culinary goodness.  A quick pan sauce of capers, cream, mustard, and brandy was just enough to send the dish into overdrive.

So that night, with the baby napping on the couch beside us and with a bottle of red wine to celebrate the occasion, my wife and I celebrated our first Valentine’s Day as a threesome.  And you know what?  I think I enjoyed it even more than an evening in New York City.

(Note: I need time to write up this recipe, since it’s a hybrid of a bunch of different sources, but as soon as I do, I will update this post.  Promise.)

Like many people, I don’t eat enough vegetables, despite having year-round access to some of the finest and freshest produce available.  It’s not that I dislike this cornucopia of goodness, and it’s not that I wouldn’t know how to prepare and serve vegetables, because I’ve got an entire library of cookbooks, plus the Internet, at my fingertips.  I really have no good reason.

I came to realize that, no matter how plentiful the produce items were in the market, I would always take a pass, simply because I didn’t have a recipe in mind for them.  Mind you, if you asked me what was for dinner, I would have gladly embarked on a lingering soliloquy about my plans for a pork loin, or a roast chicken, or a steak.  But inquire about a vegetable, any vegetable, and I would have replied with an uninspired shrug.  Vegetables certainly don’t deserve this kind of indifference – after all, they’ve done no personal harm to me and, to the contrary, are the gateway to a plethora of health benefits. So, starting about two weeks ago, I sought to change my attitude with a new mental strategy that I call The Vegetable Imperative.

The first glimmer of The Vegetable Imperative came to me while I was cruising through the produce aisle to pick up my usual stockpile of onions and garlic.  The realization was so simple and obvious, yet it has materialized into a very real impact on my cooking and eating habits.  I decided that the first step towards eating more vegetables was just making sure that I always had them on hand, regardless of whether I had any idea of what I planned to do with them.  I picked up enough vegetables for a week’s worth of dinners – cauliflower, zucchini, brussels sprouts, and carrots, all of which came to around $7.  Did I have any clue what I was going to do with them?  Not a one.

During the week, just knowing that I had these vegetables waiting at home for me was enough motivation to seek out recipes for them.  Instead of thinking of ways to prepare a protein, and then devising vegetables as an accompaniment, The Vegetable Imperative compelled me to actively shift my focus so that the vegetable would be the highlight of the meal.  The result?  Cauliflower risotto, paired with a simple sauteed chicken breast.  Strands of zucchini, tossed quickly in olive oil and garlic.  A recasting of the risotto, this time molded into patties, floured, and seared until crisp.  Ribbons of carrot, parboiled and tossed with butter and balsamic vinegar.  Many of these recipes yielded so much food, there was enough for two and sometimes three meals.  When was the last time you made chicken, and the recipe unexpectedly produced four times as much as you needed?

For each of these dinners, the protein accompaniment was served simply – a chicken or pork cutlet fried in a bit of olive oil, topped with salt and pepper, or a modest serving of salmon.  By focusing my efforts on creating a meal that was centered on the vegetable, with the protein assuming the role of side dish, I was able to incorporate a greater number and variety of vegetables into my cooking without any real additional effort.  Given the cost of produce versus the cost of meat, I was able to achieve a marginal cost savings at the checkout counter.  And, personally, I found myself much more amenable to reheating a vegetable dish with a new protein than eating a rehash of a full-fledged chicken or pork recipe with a new side.

There are times when you just impulsively pick up ingredients with no plan whatsoever for how to use them, just because they are intriguing or exceptionally fresh and inviting.  At $20 each, I had already made the decision not to pick up the emu egg, and, feeling particularly good about myself for avoiding the temptation of that purchase, was completely blindsided by the sack of Meyer lemons.  At the bargain price of $1.99, it was a risk well worth taking.

We had taken an evening to go visit the stupefyingly immense Whole Foods that had recently opened in Plymouth Meeting, PA.  At 65,000 square feet, the store sits above a parking garage with enough room for 345 cars.  Pulling into the space, you feel as if you should be checking airline arrival and departure times, and the escalator ride up from the garage feels like an ascent into hippie heaven.

Back to the lemons.  I had heard of Meyer lemons, and had the occasion to sample them as an ingredient in some courses here and there, but never has a star component of any dish.  Having only seen them once in my local market years ago, I did not take the opportunity to try them at that time, mainly because they were considered to be such an exotic item that the price was a deterrent.  So, having run into them again, and at half the price, I just had to pick them up, plan or no.

The mesh bag of golden orbs sat on our kitchen counter for a few days as I looked for an appropriate way to inaugurate my taste buds to the wonders of the Meyer lemon.  There were, to be honest, many more applications than I could ever have hoped to find – Meyer lemon sorbets, granitas, and savory dishes.  Ultimately, I decided on a very straightforward pots de creme, which beckoned with its simplicity – just a mixture of one egg, egg yolks (4), sugar (2/3C), lemon juice (1/2C), cream (1.25C), and zest.  Whipped up in a single bowl, then baked in a water bath (425 degrees) for about a half hour, there seemed to be no more straightforward way to experiment with the fruit.

The Meyer lemons actually looked nothing like lemons at all.  Instead of bumpy skin, these lemons were smooth, and instead of being bright yellow, they trended more towards orange and, in truth, looked like tangerines.  Cutting into them yielded a lot of juice, and tasting it off of my fingers, I noted that Meyer lemons are sweeter and less tart than traditional lemons – think of a cross between lemon and tangerine.  Having zested the lemons and juiced them with a reamer, I was satisfied that I had extracted as much flavor out of each of them that I possibly could have.

The Meyer lemon pots de creme turned out to be a test of willpower.  After cooking, they needed to be cooled to room temperature, covered in plastic wrap, then chilled overnight.  But the next night, after a trying day at work and a challenging commute through the cold, dark early evening of January, there was no brighter end to the day than the spoonful of pure sunshine that the pot de creme provided.

It all started with a simple message, floating out of the darkness of the Internet: “Can you keep a secret?”

Behind those five words were an invitation to be a part of one of the largest product launches in culinary history, to have the opportunity to become the Chuck Yeager of cookware and push the envelope.  But this was no covert training program, no secret military aircraft were involved, and this was no test rocket – this was a saute pan.

Along with a handful of others, I have been selected as an All-Clad ambassador, and have had the privilege of testing a piece of their new d5 line of cookware.  Those of you who are familiar with All-Clad’s line of products are already well aware of the enhanced performance and level of control that can be achieved and, like me, are wondering how All-Clad could have possibly improved on their build quality.

Having owned a couple of pieces of All-Clad in my arsenal of well-used cookware, I was already well versed in their ability to heat quickly and evenly, so I approached testing the d5 series with high expectations.  I’m happy to say that the d5 line not only meets those expectations, it completely surpasses them.  Combining five alternating layers of high and low conductivity metals, All-Clad has created a line of cookware that excels in even heat control and stability, with a few surprising usability perks thrown in for good measure.

From a design standpoint, the d5 line sports a few highlights that are worth mentioning.  For one thing, the handles on the lids are now oversized, allowing you to slip an oven mitt-clad hand through them, which provides greater stability than using mitten-y fingertips.  A redesigned pour lip enables the transfer of hot pan sauces from any side of the pan without the associated random splattering and loss of control, like those people on late night infomercials that need locking perforated lids to avoid a trip to the hospital.  The handles are now broader, allowing for less fatigue when dancing your meal across the flames of your burners.  Fans of the ‘tip and roll’ technique of making omelets, take note.

As with prior All-Clad lines, the surface of my d5 saute pan heated quickly and evenly, and sustained sufficient temperature to maintain a steady sizzle even over medium heat.  Over a few weeks, the pan held a starring role on our stove, serving as the stage for preparation of our usual weekday dinners of chicken, fish, and the occasional pork chop.

My wife, who absolutely rules the kitchen when it comes to seafood, professed that the All-Clad d5 saute pan provided “the best skin ever” on a recent fillet of salmon, prepared simply with olive oil and some garlic.  Indeed, the salmon skin came out as crisp as pork crackling, while the flesh remained a rosy pink throughout, a testament to the ability of the pan to accommodate minor temperature adjustments.  This matched my own experience with chicken breasts, coated with salt, fresh ground pepper, and a dusting of flour – searing them in the d5 saute pan yielded evenly browned, crisp medallions that, when paired with a simple pan sauce, yielded a quick and easy dinner.  As a side note, the 2 quart saute pan is appropriate for couples and single cooks – if you are cooking for more than two people, I would highly suggest going with the 3 quart pan or larger.

Cleanup was quick and easy – since the d5 line maintains such even heating, there are no hotspots, so there are no burnt spots of food that need to be scrubbed away after the meal.  Plus, as any cook knows, the secret to easy cleaning is deglazing – why wash with water after dinner when you can wash with wine or stock and end up with a killer sauce to serve with dinner?

While I was a longtime subscriber to food magazines through my early cooking years, after a while I began to realize that I was seeing the same recipes year after year.  Every May, for instance, brought the secrets of the perfect burger.  Every fall, I saw the same recipes for squash soup and roasted turkey.  This would have been tolerable, if not for the fact that, other than the recipes and advertisements, there was often very little else to read in each issue.  Once Epicurious.com launched, providing me with free access to all of the same recipes that were contained in the magazines, there was little reason to continue paying for my subscriptions.

I can’t say the same, though, for Saveur magazine.  For close to fifteen years, I’ve been diligently picking up Saveur each month, and the back issues take up the bottom shelf of the bookcase that holds my cookbook library.  Saveur has always provided well-written content that provided a foundation and background information for the recipes that accompanied each article – while the other magazines eventually made their way to the recycling bin, my Saveur issues were digested from cover to cover, then carefully archived.  In fact, when it comes time to decide what to serve for a dinner party, I pull out all of the current and prior months’ issues of Saveur from the stacks, yielding a pile of around 30 issues that serve as source material for my menu.  My collection used to be in chronological order, but has since evolved to be organized by season.

Because Saveur became the only food magazine that I read, it also happens to have become a major influence in my style of writing.  With food blogs quickly approaching a market rate of a dime per three dozen, I knew that I wanted to create a website that was more than just a collection of recipes or overviews of what I ate for lunch.  I wanted a site that reveled in writing about food as an experience, one that was a barometer of culinary culture, whether I was writing about an eight course tasting menu or a cheesesteak from down the block.  I respected and admired the writing style in Saveur and purposefully set out to emulate it, and sometimes I hit that sweet spot and sometimes I don’t.  It largely depends on how much coffee I’ve had.

When Saveur announced that they were soliciting reader submissions for their Top 100 list, I figured it would be fun to submit something.  I clicked over to their website, pulled up the form, and gave them a paragraph on the farmhouse table dinner at Talula’s Table.  Having written longer pieces on the topic once or twice before, it was fairly easy to dash together something quick and concise.  I hit ‘Submit’ and promptly forgot all about it.

One afternoon in October, I picked up my phone to see that I had one missed call and one voicemail.  The missed call was from the 212 area code, and I presumed it to be a misdial, as I don’t know anyone in Manhattan who would be calling my cell phone.

Listening to the voicemail revealed that the call was no mistake.  An editor at Saveur wanted to let me know that they were going to use my Talula’s Table entry in their Top 100 issue. I can count on one hand the number of times I have literally jumped for joy, and this was one of them.  But this was back in October, and the issue wouldn’t be arriving on newsstands until some time in January, long after Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the mad rush through the holidays.  Just as I had forgotten about submitting my entry in the first place, I tried very hard to put the notion of appearing in a national publication out of my mind.  It could have been, after all, cut due to space reasons.  The editors could change their minds.  The Large Hadron Collider could have spawned a black hole and ended the planet before it was published.  Until I held the hardcopy issue in my hands, it would not be real for me.

About two weeks ago, the current Saveur issue featuring the Top 100 became available in digital format.  I pulled it up on my browser, and while I saw my words laid out on the screen, part of me still couldn’t accept the reality of the situation.  But, there it was.

As it turns out, the world of magazine editing is a strange and wondrous place.  On the submission form, I had initially given them a single paragraph, knowing from previous Top 100 lists that each entry is allotted a very limited amount of space.  Saveur came back and asked me for more details, so I gladly wrote a longer piece, about four paragraphs.  Ultimately, the final copy that appeared in the issue had been edited – back down to one paragraph.  It still contains the major points of my original work, so I can’t help but be pleased with it.

It was only last week, when I spied the issue on the magazine rack at the supermarket, that it really felt real for me.  I grabbed a copy and flipped to the center of the issue to find my Talula’s Table entry staring back at me.  My name, my photo, and my words have been published in Saveur, the magazine that has propelled my food writing endeavors from the very beginning of this site.  It’s a small paragraph, to be sure, but it’s a start.  It’s not a feature article by any stretch of the imagination.  Still, the piece, #52, occupies the entire center of a spread that spans both pages, accompanied by a photo of a party enjoying the farmhouse table dinner.

It was a wonderful way to begin the new year.

Long before I became a food blogger, I was an avid food blog reader, and for the past few years I’ve sat back and watched in awe and admiration as the Menu for Hope campaign brought food blogs together to raise money for charity.  Created by Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim five years ago as a way to help the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, Menu for Hope has become an annual affair which today benefits the United Nations World Food Programme, which helps to feed hungry folks the world over, assisting them to become self reliant.

I am proud to be able to say that, this year, The Best Food Blog Ever is going to be a part of Menu for Hope for the first time.

Today, December 14, sees the launch of the 6th edition of Menu for Hope.  Over the past three years, Menu for Hope has raised almost a quarter of a million dollars for the UN World Food Programme.  But here’s the kicker – the majority of that money came from donations between $10 and $50.

Here’s how it works: the fundraising is performed by raffle for several glorious bid items.  Every tax-deductible contribution of US$10 buys you one ticket to win one of the items contributed by myself and other participating food bloggers – each bid item on each blog has a code that you specify as part of your contribution, and you can buy more than one ticket for the same bid item to increase your chances.

The campaign ends on Christmas, and the results of the raffle will be announced on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18, 2010.  I’ll arrange to have my bid items sent to the winners, and the funds raised will go to the United Nations World Food Programme.  All of the donations are processed by FirstGiving, an online fundraising company that has handled all of the monies for Menu for Hope since the campaign’s inception.

Here’s the fun part – the items!  Please note the shipping restrictions on each bid item when placing your donation.  The Best Food Blog Ever is offering the following three bid items this year:

UE20 is a Set of Six Cookbooks that belong on everyone’s ‘active cookbook’ shelf.  It includes copies of The Joy of Cooking, Boy Gets Grill, On Food and Cooking, Bakewise, Elements of Cooking, and Ratio.  With a retail value of nearly $200, this set could be yours for the $10 cost of a single raffle ticket.  Be sure to include the reference to the bid item code UE20 with your donation.  These books were a generous donation by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Please note that shipping for this item is restricted to the United States.

UE21 is an Stainless Kitchen Tool Set by All-Clad.  Check it out, you get a slotted spoon, solid spoon, fork, ladle, and turner, all in a nice matching caddy.  Worth $120 at retail, this will be the absolute last set of tools you’ll ever need, and owning them will make you hate cooking in other peoples’ kitchens.  To get a shot at this item, include the bid item code UE21 with your donation.  Much thanks to our friends at All-Clad for donating this prize!  Please note that shipping for this item is restricted to the United States.

Here’s the biggie.  Bid item UE22 is a bundle package of the Nespresso Le Cube Espresso Machine coupled with the Aeroccino Plus Frother.  I actually own a Nespresso machine, and it makes espresso on par with the best cafes in Europe – it’s that good.  But you know what makes the espresso from my Nespresso even better?  Steamed milk and a dollop of froth straight from my Aeroccino Plus.  It’s an incredible frother that has both hot and cold options, and two little propellers for froth/no-froth.  With a retail value of $349, this prize is worth multiple donation entries because, trust me, you want this bundle on your kitchen counter.  Be sure to reference bid item code UE22 with your donation.  The Le Cube and Aeroccino Plus were donated by our friends at Nespresso.  Please note that shipping for this item is restricted to the United States and Canada.

If you have any questions about Menu for Hope, check out Chez Pim and read her main Menu for Hope post, where you can also find a master list of prizes across all food blogs.  Thank you in advance for your generous participation!

Instructions for Donating:

1. Choose a bid item or several items from the master list.

2. Go to the donation site and make a donation.

3. Each $10 contribution gets you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. You must specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. If purchasing multiple raffle entries, you must write-in how many tickets per item, referencing the bid item codes. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UE22 (espresso machine), 1 ticket for UE21 (kitchen tools), and 2 tickets for UE20 (cookbooks). If you were doing this, you would write 2xUE22, 1xUE21, 2xUE20.  On the other hand, if you wanted to get 5 chances at the Nespresso bundle, you’d write 5xUE22.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we can claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Happy Giving and Good Luck!

My first experience with Max Brenner chocolates occurred this past summer, during the last few hours of our trip to Manhattan. We stopped into the Max Brenner Chocolate Bar in Astor Place, our curiosity piqued by the notion of an entire restaurant devoted to chocolate.  Exhausted from having taken in two full days of the Fancy Food Show, and with a bag containing sixty pounds of cookbooks in tow (long story), we were in no shape to sit down and engage in a full meal – but that’s not to say that we merely browsed and left empty-handed.  It’s CHOCOLATE, folks.  You can’t just look.  It’s illegal to just look.

The store is like a Willy Wonka fantasy for adults. A variety of chocolates were showcased under glass, like jewelry, and it took us quite a few minutes of circling the case before we were able to decide on our selections.  Each square piece of chocolate featured an intricate design and yielded flavors blending the usual suspects – fruit, liqueurs, nuts, cereals – all very good, and beautifully presented.  A box of Max Brenner chocolate pralines is as much a feast for the eyes as for the palate.

With that said, when I was offered the opportunity to review Max Brenner’s cookbook, entitled Chocolate: A Love Story, there was absolutely no hesitation behind my acceptance.  As it turns out, just as his retail shops are no standard confectioneries, Max Brenner’s book is far from your ordinary cookbook.

Max Brenner, in collaboration with the artist Yonatan Factor, has created a compelling work that achieves something that is rare among cookbooks – Chocolate: A Love Story not only inspires me to cook, it also inspires me to write.  Reading this book, you realize that a cookbook that is prepared by a writer can become a very different animal from all of the cookbooks that are mere collections of recipes.

Most of the 65 recipes in this book are introduced by snippets of prose written by Brenner, which all tend to evoke themes of love, romance, chocolate, and nostalgia.  Not content to simply throw recipes at the reader, Brenner seeks to draw his audience into his world, using prose to set a mood for the reader, so that they may experience a fleeting glimpse of some deeply emotional fiction that connects Brenner to the recipe on the page – romance, whimsy, ennui, nostalgia, senses of loss and remorse among them.  Remorse? Are we still talking about a cookbook?  Amazingly, we are.

The recipes are accompanied on the facing pages by Yonatan Factor’s Art Deco poster graphics, which serve to complement Brenner’s prose, and which sometimes threaten to transform the recipe itself into a third wheel.  Thankfully, the majority of the recipes are strong enough to stand on their own, and then some.

Recipe titles like “Control Freak Chocolate Spread” and “Politically Correct Sacher Torte” mingle freely with straightforward declarations like “The Belgian street waffle” – a deceptively simple title which contains no hint of its inclusion of butterscotch chips, roasted pineapple, and a white chocolate and orange maple sauce.  There’s even a recipe that mimics a cheeseburger in its entirety – but using chocolate instead of beef patty, strawberries instead of ketchup, and so forth.  It’s not something that you would expect an average reader to attempt, but Brenner gets credit for the imaginative effort.

Reading the intro to “My lost childhood chocolate birthday cake”, which one would think to be a surefire recipe for happiness, actually made me a little sad. The recipe itself is a very basic yellow cake preparation with a ganache frosting, nothing fancy or overly complex.  The same recipe could appear in a dozen other cookbooks and evoke no emotion whatsoever. Yet, in Brenner’s hands, it’s something else.

In his introduction to the book, Max Brenner says that after ten years of seeking inspiration, he has yet to embark on writing his first novel.  But, flipping through the pages of his book, it’s quite clear to me that he’s already been on his journey as a writer for quite a while now, and maybe he just hasn’t realized it.  All of his ingredients are in place, somewhere in his mind – he just needs to put them all together to create a literary meal.

It’s hard to imagine today, but there was a time when granola was healthy.  It was just a few years ago that granola was regarded as a “weird” food, one that was shunned by the mainstream masses.  If you wanted to buy some, you’d have to go into a natural foods store to find it – one of those places that also sells healing crystals, vegetarian dog food, and bread products with as much umami as styrofoam.  Granola was seen as “just” health food, or at the very least something that only people from California would eat.

At some point, the Powers That Be seized upon the realization that they could sell granola bars at the supermarket if they made a few special additions here and there – you know, to make granola more compatible with the average customer’s palate.  Shoppers would perceive that they were engaged in a healthy diet choice (it is granola, after all) but in order to get them truly on board with the concept, the brands started adding chocolate, and additional sugar, and all manner of preservatives.  Some preservatives were added to keep chewy granola soft, others to keep crunchy granola from going stale.  The end result?  You can’t find a mass-marketed granola bar that’s truly healthy.  In fact, if you check the nutritional panel on a typical box of granola bars, you’ll find that some brands are really no better for you than most candy bars.  If truly healthy granola is Anakin, then the bars that contain chocolate chips, added sugar, and overly-sweetened yogurt fillings are Darth Vader – twisted, evil, and full of empty calories.

Instead of feeling down about this whole corrupted granola scenario, I decided to make my own.  It is incredibly easy, and the best part about making your own granola is the fact that you know everything that goes into them.  The base ingredients are cheap, widely available, and good for you.  If you want to tart them up with less-than-healthy components, or go completely overboard with additional healthy ingredients, it’s completely up to you.  The important thing is this – you have full control over what you’re eating.

The basic concept of any granola bar recipe involves mixing a combination of dry ingredients (primarily oats) with some form of gooey liquid sweetener to bind it all together (without the binding, you just have granola, no bar).  Press the mess into a dish, bake until set, then store in an airtight container.  I am presenting the master recipe here, but I hope to experiment a little more and come up with some truly unique combinations later.  I’m still tinkering – the bars are not as soft as I would like, and maybe this can be resolved just by dialing back how much time they spend in the oven.

The Best Food Blog Ever Master Granola Bar Recipe uses a combination of oats, nuts, and dried coconut for the dry ingredients, and honey, peanut butter, and brown rice syrup for the wet.  One of the things that you’ll notice about this recipe is that there is no white sugar – by using honey and brown rice syrup, you still achieve the desired sweetness but in a way that is slowly digested and avoids sugar crash.  Also, the ingredients are very forgiving, so long as you maintain approximately the same volumes – if all that you have on hand are raisins, you can use all raisins.

The Best Food Blog Ever Master Granola Bar Recipe

2 cups oats
1 cup mixed nuts, chopped (see note about salt, below)
1 1/2 cup raisins, dried cranberries, and dried cherries
1 cup shredded coconut (low fat version, if available)
1/2 cup wheat germ or flax seeds

1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup peanut butter (natural, if available)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted nuts)

Set your oven to 350°F. Line a baking dish (a square one for thicker bars, or a rectangle for thinner ones) with foil or parchment paper.  Get a rubber spatula ready.

Bake the oatmeal, coconut, and nuts together on a sheet pan for 15 minutes, until visibly browned.  You’ll know by the toasty smell that’s coming from your oven.

While the dry ingredients are toasting, mix the wet ingredients in a measuring cup, making sure to stir thoroughly to incorporate the vanilla and salt throughout.  Set aside.

This next step is best done in a stand mixer, but if you don’t have one you can also use a handheld mixer or a quick stirring arm.

Transfer the hot mixture to a bowl and stir in the wheat germ or flax seeds.  Pour the wet ingredients over the warm dry ingredients and mix together, then add the dried fruit and mix for a few seconds more.  Using the rubber spatula, press the mixture into the pan.

Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes.  I am still tinkering with the baking time – I have been baking the bars for 30 minutes, which yields a harder texture than what I would like.

Lift the granola slab out of the pan and let cool completely, then cut into bars and store in an airtight container.

The Best Food Blog Ever Screen Saver is now available!

This project started when I came across a software application that let me build screensavers.  I figured it would be nice to market a screensaver that featured the photos that have appeared on The Best Food Blog Ever, especially since most photos are often used only once to accompany an entry and never appear again in any other context.

I fired up iPhoto, scrolled to the very first photo, and started gathering the best food pictures.  As it turns out, I had been taking pictures of my food well before I began writing about the topic, and when I had finally reached the end of our photo collection, I had tagged well over 300 pictures!  You may recognize some of them from The Best Food Blog Ever, but there are also quite a few notable shots from our trips to Paris and Italy, which occurred years before I even had the idea to start this blog.

With that said, you can download a free trial of the screensaver by clicking here, or by clicking on the graphic on the website.  If you enjoy the photos and would like to continue using the screensaver after the trial period ends, the purchase price is $4.99 99 CENTS.  Once you have completed your purchase, I’ll receive an email with your name, and I’ll send out a registration code which unlocks the full version.

With a reservations policy that requires prospective diners to reserve the 12-seat farmhouse table exactly one year in advance, Talula’s Table continues to be one of the toughest reservations in the country – one that requires patience, diligence, and either a quick dialing finger or a willingness to camp outside of the store in the predawn chill.  Scoring one reservation, under any circumstances, would qualify us as extremely lucky – but having had the opportunity to eat at Talula’s Table twice in the span of seven months, once in November and again in June, is nothing short of miraculous.

But three times?  That would be pushing our luck.  This was our thirteenth wedding anniversary, and the last before the birth of our child, and by all rights we should have been planning an extravagant blowout celebration at a swanky downtown Philadelphia restaurant – Morimoto, Barclay Prime, maybe even Lacroix at the Rittenhouse.  But, in a moment of shared telepathy that only long-term married couples achieve, we had each separately come to the same wish – if at all possible, we wanted to have our anniversary dinner at Talula’s Table.  And, since an anniversary dinner isn’t an experience that is typically shared with ten other companions, we wanted more than anything to eat at the kitchen table, a private seating for two to six people that takes place in the middle of the action.

As luck would have it, our wish was granted.

Our evening started much like our other outings to Talula’s Table.  Having come in from the rain, we sat at a long table set up in the front of the store and dried ourselves while sipping drinks and partaking of  hors d’oeuvres.  From our vantage point, we were witness to an all-too-familiar scene, of that night’s dinner party greeting each other, mingling, and chatting excitedly as their sense of anticipation heightened.  Having been seated at the front of the store, with a generous cushion of space between us and the farmhouse table, I was quite sure that our presence never interfered with their experience.  In fact, if you were to ask me if I had ever taken notice of any kitchen table diners in either of our two previous visits, I can honestly say that I haven’t.

Once we had finished our starters, and the dinner service was ready to begin,  we were quietly ushered through the store, behind the cheese counter, beyond the threshold of the swinging door and into the brightly lit kitchen at Talula’s Table.

The first thing that struck me about the inner sanctum of chef Bryan Sikora’s kitchen is the quiet serenity of the entire scene.  You frequently hear stories of red-faced, manic chefs, barking orders at the harried cooks while the patrons in the dining room consume their dishes in blissful ignorance of the tumult.  The kitchen at Talula’s Table is nothing like this – it is calm, it is orderly, and it is organized.

As we walked through the kitchen, each member of the staff greeted us warmly.  Settling onto our chairs at one end of the wooden table, we immediately knew that we were in for a treat – having a front row seat to everything that was going on was a special, special feeling.  Sikora chatted with us amiably as he prepped the ingredients for the courses to come, and it was thrilling being able to ask him questions about the food as we watched and ate.  Want to know what’s in the sauce?  Ask the chef.  Right over there.

And that’s how our meal began.  We watched the sous chefs as they kept a close eye on an array of ingredients that were simmering on the stove, or baking in the oven, while Sikora tended to a cutting board of ripe summer tomatoes and ears of fresh corn.

I briefly recalled how hectic the kitchen at Django used to be, with Sikora and company spinning out dinner service for 38 patrons at a time, nonstop, from 5pm to 10pm and beyond, all in a kitchen no bigger than a small bedroom.  Now, Sikora reigns over a kitchen that is considerably roomier, where he and his sous chefs can concentrate on delivering an incredible multi-course feast to twelve people over four hours.

While the kitchen table experience is considerably different from that of the farmhouse table – for one thing, the kitchen is brightly lit, while the farmhouse table makes the best use of intimate shadows cast by the soft glow of an overhead chandelier, the service remains unparalleled in either environment.  As the dishes were presented to us, the server explained the construction of each preparation just as professionally here, with just the two of us, as if we were part of the larger group just outside the door.

Our first course was a Red Snapper Crudo, Cauliflower Puree, Nectarine, and Topeko Roe.  The cauliflower, piped into a circular base, provided an earthy well for the snapper, which was so delicate in its raw state, I can almost describe it as fragile.  The sweetness of the nectarine formed a perfect union with the marine saltiness of the golden roe – taken in a single unified bite, the components of this course melded well and were quite capable of waking up the palate to prepare it for the dishes to come.

Do you remember those tomatoes?  Those same heirloom gems, prepped by Sikora only moments before, made their grand entrance in the second course, an Heirloom Tomato Salad, Petite Sweet Corn Tart, Old Bay Butter Sauce, and Arugula Salad.  The actual dish deviated somewhat from the menu description, but its impact was in no way lessened by the variations – there was no Old Bay spice to be found in the butter sauce, and the corn tart was brought to a new level by chunks of goat cheese throughout.  The tomatoes, as fresh as one could get in August, were an appealing explosion of red, green, and gold.  Coupled with the crunch of fresh corn kernels in the tart, the entire dish was summer on a plate.

If you’re like me, for certain foods that you love, you will always remember the first time you had the opportunity to really taste them, and how much of an epiphany it was to have your palate expanded by this great new dish or ingredient.  For me, that food this night was the fava bean, and the third course is what introduced me to them.  The Hand Rolled Rigatoni, Maine Lobster, and Fava Bean Coulis was a relatively simple dish – a firm tube of pasta enclosed around some of the sweetest, most tender lobster meat I’ve had, all set on top of a forest-green puree of fava beans.  As a fan of broccoli rabe, I appreciate any vegetable that has a slightly bitter edge, and the fava beans delivered on this count, along with a velvety texture and a taste that evoked hints of grass.  I had tasted fava beans before, but only as an adornment – I had never had the opportunity to enjoy their flavor in such a pure, isolated format as this.

Following the Talula’s Table tradition of lighter courses that gradually escalate to heavier, more robust flavors, the fourth course was a Ballottine of Rabbit, Braised Cabbage, Spaetzle and Black Truffle.  The ballottine, comprised of boneless rabbit which had been stuffed and rolled into a bundle, had been braised and served with a rich rabbit jus.  The rabbit meat had a smooth consistency, not quite like a terrine, and a bed of spaetzle was put to good use, both to elevate the ballottine as well as to swirl around in the wonderful jus.  Earthy notes came from a hit of truffle butter and a topping of crunchy fried green olive slivers.

The last time we ate at Talula’s Table, I wrote about the amazing salmon course that was prepared sous vide.  At that time, I had images of a complex setup of precise heating units and immersion circulators dancing in my head, all perfectly calibrated to bring the vacuum-sealed fish to an exact temperature.  Having witnessed the preparation of the fifth course, a Wild Sockeye Salmon, Grain Mustard, Molasses, and Saskatchewan Chanterelles dish, I now realize that I have been overthinking sous vide all along.  At Talula’s Table, the sous vide process consists of little more than the highest quality ingredients, a pot of water, and a probe thermometer.  Yet, this simple configuration yields salmon with a velvety texture that melts on the tongue.  Paired with an aggressive mustard component that’s been tempered by the sweetness of molasses, the salmon was a standout presentation.  A delicately stewed cipollini onion, along with a smashed potato cake, crisp on the exterior yet soft as cotton on the inside, provided a nice contrast to the fish.

The sixth course was a celebration of beef entitled Caramelized Strip Steak, Smoked Short Rib, and Roasted Garden Pepper Terrine.  The strip steak was a straightforward preparation, seasoned simply with cracked black pepper, seared to medium-rare, with just the slightest hint of smokiness.  More creativity was devoted to the terrine, a block of shredded short rib meat encased in peppery Swiss chard, layered with slices of green and red peppers.

The cheese course was, as it always has been under the direction of Aimee Olexy, a perfect ensemble of ripened specimens covering the spectrum from mild to overtly adventurous.  There was a trio of goat cheeses, all local to Pennsylvania.  One was studded with cranberries,  another salty like feta, and still a third, tangy and covered in ash.  A Camembert followed, and an outstanding sheep’s milk cheese from the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in New York.  A raw cow’s milk cheese from Chester Springs led to the last, and most forward entry, Birchrun Blue.  The accompaniments – a sliver of housemade chorizo, a smear of honey, some toasted nuts – presented hard pairing choices with each of the cheeses.

The dessert course, a Frozen White Peach Parfait, Lavender-Almond Cake, Acacia Honey Granita, and Champagne Foam, was a perfectly balanced ending to such a lavish meal.  The cake was a spongy disk that served well to soak up the runoff from the melting custard-like parfait, and the granita provided a nice crunch to offset the smooth textures prevalent throughout the rest of the dish.

So, is the kitchen table a better experience than the farmhouse table?  It’s hard to say, because so much of the dining experience at Talula’s Table hinges on the synergy that emerges from a table of really well-paired dining companions.  With a farmhouse table filled with close friends old and new, the experience approaches perfection, achieving a harmony of food and wine and comradery that is unparalleled in any other establishment.  But with just the two of us, sitting there at the kitchen table, the feeling is the same, but more intimate, more personal – it’s the quiet thrill of sharing the best food with the best partner that you could ever ask for, celebrating the end of one of life’s chapters and the beginning of the next.