Canal House Cooking Volume No. 7: La Dolce Vita

by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton
photos by Christopher Hirsheimer; illustrations by Melissa Hamilton

Facts: Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC,  124 pages, $29.95 (or Amazon at $12.90)
Photos: 55, plus illustrations
Recipes: 66
Give To: Passionate home cooks with a bent toward Italian cooking

At the risk of being accused of having a bias toward Italian cookbooks, I’m going to review two in a row. But, other than the fact that each book has tasty Italian recipes, they couldn’t be more different. And, Canal House Cooking, Volume 7: La Dolce Vita is a gem.

Canal House — which happens to be on a canal — isn’t a restaurant but rather a studio/kitchen/atelier where Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton cook every day. They are proponents of home cooking – even the tagline is “home cooking, by home cooks, for home cooks.”

Oh, and you noticed that this is Volume No. 7? Previous volumes focused on seasonal, holiday, and farmers’ market cooking. Then one afternoon, a lunch of cannelloni inspired them to focus on Italian food, specifically homemade food.

To have true in-depth knowledge of Italian home cooking, they needed to be on Italian soil. A rustic Tuscan farmhouse was their base camp for a month – daily excusions would be their fodder. The first day they noticed that a vegetable farmer was within walking distance and hiking a bit further they “passed a garage with the door rolled up and noticed two aproned women… chatting away as they plucked a pile of chickens.” Back at the farmhouse that evening, they dined on roasted capon with chestnut stuffing. Each day was an adventure that ended in the kitchen developing recipes and recreating flavors.

The experience yielded toothsome recipes like Speck, Fontina & Lemon Panino, Salt Cod with Tomatoes and Green Olives, Braised Lamb & Green Beans and Vin Santo-Poached Pears with Gorgonzola Dolce. All courses are represented in clear and well written recipes, i.e., a few cocktail recipes followed by antipasti, soups, pasta and rice, fish, meats and desserts. Salute Melissa and Christopher!

To see Canal House and hear the authors talk about Italianate cooking watch this video.

Gelato di Gianduia

Makes about 1 quart

photo © by Christopher Hirsheimer

In any form, the classic Piemontese combination of toasted hazelnuts and chocolate is one of our favorite flavors. You’ll see why, when you taste this luxurious gelato.

Ingredients
3 cups skinned hazelnuts
2 1/4 cups whole milk
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon Frangelico or other hazelnut liqueur
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method
1. Heat the oven to 350°F and toast the hazelnuts on a baking sheet until deep golden brown, about 15 minutes. When cool, finely grind 2 cups of the nuts in a food processor. Chop the remaining cup of nuts and set them aside.

2. Put the milk and cream into a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in finely ground nuts, and steep for one hour. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into another saucepan, pressing on the solids before discarding them. Add 1/2 cup of sugar to the milk. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

3. Put the egg yolks, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar into a medium mixing bowl and whisk together until thick and pale yellow. Whisk in the cocoa. Gradually ladle about 1 cup hot milk into the yolks, whisking constantly. Stir the warm yolk mixture into the hot milk in the saucepan. Reduce the heat to low, stirring constantly, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and registers between 175°F and 180°F on an instant read thermometer, about 3-5 minutes.

4. Strain the custard into a medium bowl. Add the liqueur and vanilla and stir frequently until cool. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled, about 4 hours. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

5. Churn the custard in an ice-cream maker following the manufacturer’s directions. Just before the gelato has finished churning, add the reserved chopped nuts, letting the paddle stir them in. Transfer the gelato to a quart container with a lid. Cover and freeze for a couple of hours or until it is just firm.

In 1993, I dined at Aqua in San Francisco, a restaurant headed by a 20-something, Egyptian-born, American-bred chef named Michael Mina. To me, it was revolutionary.

It was the first time I ate a piece of fish that wasn’t caught by my mother and subsequently fried. I don’t remember what type of fish it was, but I remember it was buttery, delicate and visually stunning. And I remember being mesmerized by the look and feel of Aqua — a sparkling Poseidon wonderland.

Before that exalted dinner, I was in the early stage of a fateful affair with food, the result of marrying into a family whose womenfolk were phenomenal Southern home cooks. The Aqua experience was another piece of a puzzle I was subconsciously putting together — revealing a map that would lead me in whole new direction. Less than two years later, I left the corporate world and moved across the country to attend culinary school.

Fast forward to the summer of 2008, when I received an assignment from my editor at PHOENIX magazine to review a new steakhouse at The Scottsdale Princess resort called Bourbon Steak — a Michael Mina restaurant. There was plenty of scandalous buzz surrounding the opening of Bourbon Steak, most notably a $175 Japanese A5 Kobe strip steak on the menu. I blew my generous budget before the end of my second visit, but I went back one more time on my own dime before I wrote the review to dive deeper into the estimable menu. (Yes, I did eat that conspicuous steak, and loved every bite.)

Mina recently celebrated 20 years as a successful chef and restaurateur during a tribute dinner in his eponymous San Francisco restaurant, Michael Mina — the former home of Aqua, where he began his meteoric rise.

Instead of kicking back and enjoying the spoils of celebrity chef fame, Mina is doing what he knows best: he is opening his 20th restaurant, a new concept called Pabu, a Japanese izakaya at the Baltimore Four Seasons, in collaboration with his friend, Chef Ken Tominaga, owner of Hana Japanese in Santa Rosa.

Mina was in Scottsdale last week to visit his team and help introduce a few new seasonal dishes. I caught up with him after he’d spent the day writing the new menu, tasting the new dishes and generally cheer-leading his team, headed by Executive Chef Daniel Patino.

Mina and Patino courtesy of Bourbon Steak

Sitting outside, he comments on one of the reasons he looks forward to coming to town: the weather.

“It’s so calm, so still — there’s no wind,” he says. “Where we are, you don’t have many nights where you can sit out after work and relax.” He doesn’t even mind the hot Arizona summers, a welcome change of pace from his usually chilly base in the Bay Area.

I tell him about trying the infamous $175 steak, and he laughs. I ask if the economy drove it off the menu. The steak did generate buzz, he says, but no, it wasn’t the economy. Japan stopped exporting their Kobe beef to the U.S. It’s just as well, Mina says, citing the sensibilities that came with the economic crash in late 2008, plus the increasing quality of the more reasonably priced American Wagyu.

“Anyone who tells you the economy doesn’t impact high end restaurants? Well, that’s not the case. Only a few restaurants are that bullet proof,” he says.

Bourbon Steak in Scottsdale has weathered the recent rough waters by building a loyal, local clientele. Relying on resort guests, Mina says, can only take a restaurant so far. He believes the reason the restaurant has not only survived, but thrived, is because they work hard to appeal to locals through seasonal menu changes and attention to detail, especially focusing on the guest experience via exceptional service.

Mina’s Recipe for Success

With 19 — almost 20 — restaurants in 10 different cities, Mina has plenty to keep track of, including more than 1,300 employees. How does he do it?

“Well, I was very fortunate. I’ve had two opportunities to do this, first with Aqua. When I spun off [to form the Mina Group], I had the chance to start over, and I made a commitment to building an infrastructure before building a restaurant. I’ve had a lot of good people who worked with me for many years. We’ve grown up together, really, and that team became the core of my company,” he says.

Part of Mina’s infrastructure is a website developed for just the staff, both in the kitchen and the front of the house. Mina is also committed to constant training and education. The website, which took five years to create, contains thousands of recipes and videos.

Chef Matthew Taylor of Phoenix-based Restaurant noca, who was Executive Sous Chef at the Las Vegas Michael Mina restaurant at the Bellagio and the Nobhill Tavern at the MGM Grand for two years before taking over at noca last fall, says “Mina surrounds himself with great people and he’s not ego-driven — at all.”

Taylor also says that at any given moment, Mina can tell you exactly what’s going on in each restaurant — from what is on the menu to the financial forecasts. Taylor helped create content for the staff website, and says there’s nothing else like it.

“It’s really cool,” Taylor says. “There are recipes for every dish and videos for each dish — videos showing how to cook the dish, videos on how to plate it, and in some cases, how to serve it.”

While the rest of us can’t access the private staff database, we can get a glimpse of Mina’s cooking philosophy on the public website through a series of short cooking videos demonstrating his mantra of “acidity, sweetness, spice and richness.”

“What’s really fun is when you get into things that combine these [attributes], like pineapple or green apple, with both acid and sweetness,” he says.

Some of Mina’s favorite ingredients? They all fit into one of his four cornerstones of balanced cooking. He adores citrus and Banyuls, an aged French red wine vinegar (acid); and radishes, ginger and chiles (heat); and coconut cream and avocado (richness).

Exchange of Knowledge

Mina says he was lucky. “I was center stage of a major restaurant at a young age. That doesn’t happen very often. I got to learn from watching great people who came to work for me and I had a very open mind. I still do. Now when I want to learn something, I learn from my chefs. It’s an exchange of knowledge and it’s great.”

Twenty years later, Mina is still drawn to the same thing that led him to cooking in the first place: a desire to understand the craft of cooking.

Almost as many years later, so am I, thanks in part to Mina.

Details:
The Mina Group

Bourbon Steak
The Scottsdale Fairmont Princess Resort
7575 E. Princess Drive, Scottsdale
480-513-6002

Jaclyn Douma did something lots of people dream of doing but never do: she published a cookbook.

It isn’t fancy or filled with page-after-page of glorious food close-ups (although there is a small section at the beginning with 28 professional photos of some of the dishes).

Instead, the book is filled with simple, easy to read and understand recipes. These aren’t the kind of dishes I would cook, but darn if I’m not smitten with this book and the way Douma put it together.

Our First Year is a compilation of recipes (84 in all) Douma developed during her first year of marriage. She figured there were other newlyweds who didn’t know where to begin in the kitchen, so she drew them a map from here to there, beginning with a pantry list and section called “Bits of Advice.”

She put together 13 party ideas and gives tips on how to execute them. There’s a section on menus, too, so the new bride knows how to put a meal together, and just in case there’s a question about an ingredient or cooking technique, she penned a basic glossary.

Snuggle Pigs

Makes 40 wieners

Ingredients:
1 (14-oz.) package cocktail wieners/little sausage smokies
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (loosely packed)
10 strips of bacon
Toothpicks

Method:
Preheat oven: 400° F. Place sausages in a bowl so they are easier to handle. Cut uncooked bacon into 4 sections and wrap each wiener with bacon, securing with a toothpick. Place wrapped wieners in a 9″ X 9″ casserole dish and cover with brown sugar. Make sure you cannot see any wieners. Then cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 ºF for 18 to 20 minutes covered and an additional 15 minutes uncovered or until brown sugar has turned into a liquid.

Just a little Secret

No need to keep these babies warm. Snuggle Pigs are great at room temperature as well.

Jaclyn Douma’s website: a-sugarnspice-life.com and blog: passion2crave.blogspot.com 

]]> http://penandfork.com/book-product-reviews/newlywed-pens-starter-cookbook/feed/ 4 http://penandfork.com/book-product-reviews/the-country-cooking-of-italy/ http://penandfork.com/book-product-reviews/the-country-cooking-of-italy/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:23:48 +0000 Linda Avery http://penandfork.com/?p=11570 Editor’s note: Linda Avery returns with a look at Colman Andrews’ new cookbook, The Country Cooking of Italy and an easy recipe for frico (cheese crisps). Interestingly, Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones & Butter, was in Phoenix recently for a book signing  and said “ if we think we have enough Italian cookbooks, we don’t and — and we need his The Country Cooking of Italy.”

The Country Cooking of Italy

by Colman Andrews
photos by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton

Facts: Chronicle Books, 392 pages, $50.00 (or Amazon at $29.56)
Photos: I counted 60 in the first 150 pages – let’s consider that representative
Recipes: Hundreds – literally
Give To: passionate home cooks, Italian food lovers

When I reviewed Colman Andrews’ The Country Cooking of Ireland in 2009, I wondered how long it him took to put together such a collection. Apparently the answer is about two years. This is a man who grabs the bull by the horns; a man who doesn’t do anything slipshod.

After the success and awards garnered by “Ireland” (his sixth James Beard and the Julia Child/IACP award), he kicked it into high gear and two years later, another voluminous cookbook is introduced: The Country Cooking of Italy. He again partnered with noted photographer Christopher Hirsheimer. (By the way, Andrews and Hirsheimer were two of the co-founders of Saveur Magazine in 1994.)

The book is formatted like the Ireland book. Beautifully photographed recipes are peppered with page-long stories, some historical, some educational, some anecdotal from Andrews’ travels. Although images of recipe dishes abound, lifestyle photos deepen the interest and are testimony to Hirsheimer’s talent.

These aren’t the recipes of fine restaurants but of the casalinga (housewife) or what one would be served at an agriturismo (an Italian farm property offering accommodations and meals).

Most pan-Italy cookbooks forget about the little known regions so I was gratified to see numerous mentions of Le Marche, birthplace of my grandparents and Olive all’Ascolana, the deep-fried olives stuffed with meat particularly famous in Le Marche and served in local bars from Venice to Tuscany.

Go to Amazon and use their “Search Inside This Book” feature to see the index of recipes. Remarkable. In no time you’ll be humming “That’s Amore!”

Frico  (Friulano Cheese Crisps)

© photo by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton

Makes about 20 fritters; serves 6 to 8

These easy-to-make cheese crisps or fritters are a specialty of Friuli, and are best made with Montasio, a firm cow’s milk cheese from that corner of Italy. there is also a cheese from Valcellina in Friuli’s Pordenone Province, rarely seen today, called frico Balacia, specifically meant to be fried. Some purists insist that the cheese must be fried in lard. (A source for Montasio is Corti Brothers).

Ingredients
1 pound/500 grams Montasio or Asiago, grated
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter
2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Method
1. Combine the cheese and flour in a large bowl, and mix together well but gently with your hands.

2. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium-low heat, and add 2 tablespoons of oil.

3. When the oil-butter mixture is hot, working in batches, use a spoon to form fritters 2 to 3 inches/5 to 7.5 centimeters in diameter, using about 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture for each fritter and gently tamping down each fritter with a spatula. Make sure the edges of the fritters don’t touch.

4. Cook the fritters, without moving them, until their edges turn golden brown, about 3 minutes.

5. Then, using the spatula, carefully turn them and cook until golden, about 2 minutes longer. As the fritters are ready, drain them on paper towels.

6. Serve the fritters at room temperature.

Tillamook Taco Week? Sure, I’ll bite. Who doesn’t love tacos?

And Tillamook Cheese is a cooperative of nearly 110 dairies who pool their milk to produce award-winning cheeses (they’ve won over 600 awards since they started more than 100 years ago).

Four Phoenix restaurants have signed on to create a signature taco using Tillamook Cheese as part of the Tillamook Cheese’s Loaf Love Tour.

The Loaf Love Tour will also be making a special appearance at each restaurant during the week so keep an eye out for their yellow mini-buses (which, not coincidentally, resemble a loaf of Tillamook cheese).

Photo courtesy of Tillamook Cheese

Here’s where to get your Tillamook taco fix from February 11 through February 18:

Fuego Tacos

From Chef Holly Arguello: “The Arizonan” – A homemade taco shell with local chorizo, green onion salsa, braised chicken thigh meat and Tillamook Pepper Jack cheese. Served with arroz gandules and Cuban black beans. ($10)

Carte Blanche Gourmet Tacos

From chef/owner Shantal Chase: “Griddled Fish Taco with Slaw” – a steak or chicken taco served with tomato arbol chile sauce and Tillamook Pepper Jack Cheese. (3 tacos for $8)

Vitamin T

From Chef Aaron May:  “viTamin T quesoTilla Taco” –  made with a blend of Tillamook medium cheddar and Tillamook Monterey Jack cheeses. ($2 per taco or 3 for $5)

Ticoz Resto-Bar

From Chef Gabriela Quevedo: “Braised Beef Tillamook Tacos” – two corn tortillas filled with braised beef, sautéed onions, red and green peppers and Tillamook cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses. Tortillas are topped with melted Tillamook cheese and served with rice and pinto beans. ($12.95)

For example, I use linguine instead of spaghetti.

I realize that’s not that big of a stretch, but I use some other unconventional ingredients, too: half-and-half and smoked salmon.

My carbonara is smoky, smoky — first hit of smoke: applewood smoked bacon; second punch: hardwood smoked salmon. (I told you this isn’t conventional.)

Authentic Roman carbonara calls for pancetta (unsmoked bacon). It also calls for egg yolks, but I use whole eggs instead.

This next part isn’t traditional either. Part of it is — whisking the eggs with the cheese — but whisking in half-and-half instead of pasta water is a guilty deviation.

Some people would balk at adding cream or half-and-half to carbonara. I’m not one of those people.

I don’t throw all caution to the wind — I do heavily salt the pasta water.

It’s important to salt the water (after it comes to a boil) to “season” the pasta. It’s also important to stir the pasta as soon as it’s added to the boiling water to submerge it and keep it from settling to the bottom into a gloppy mess.

I reduce the heat, too. No need to boil it to death, but you do want a good simmer.

After the pasta is gently boiling, start the bacon in a cold skillet over medium heat (I don’t mean chill the skillet first, I mean don’t turn the heat on until the bacon is in the pan). This helps render out as much fat as it’s going to give.

When the bacon is showing signs of crisping, but still hanging on to the last vestals of fat, stir in the garlic. Stir the garlic in too soon, and it will crisp up like the bacon, maybe even burn.

Smoked salmon is the least traditional ingredient in my recipe, but it sure makes a good, smoky carbonara.

This Red King chinook salmon is not cheap ($8 for a 6.5 oz. can). I buy it at a local farmers’ market from Roger Kamb, a jolly fisherman who splits his time between Seattle and Scottsdale. His business is Especial Tuna, and I’d point you to his website, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Too bad, because this is some great stuff — nothing like the commercial brands found at most supermarkets. You can certainly use one of those brands (my mother made salmon patties with Honey Boy Red (not pink) salmon, but you have to clean it up a bit, removing the skin here and there, and Honey Boy isn’t smoked).

Once the pasta is al dente, drain it (reserve a half a cup or so of the pasta water) and put the pasta in the skillet with the bacon and garlic.

WAIT! Before you do that, I have a confession: I deglaze the pan with rosé first — definitely not traditional.

But it is delicious. You can skip this step if you want.

Once the hot pasta is in the pan with the deglazed bacon and garlic, turn the heat off.

Stir in the egg/cheese/half-and-half mixture. If you leave the heat on, the eggs will scramble (it’s not the end of the world if you get a little scramble, it’s just not traditional, and you know what a stickler for tradition I am).

Toss in the can of smoked salmon and keep tossing. If the sauce seems too thick (and it likely will), pour in some reserved hot pasta water, just enough to make the sauce look creamy.

Season with a good dose of freshly ground black pepper. Top with more grated Parmesan. (And no, the basil leaf isn’t traditional either.)

Pour a glass of rosé if you haven’t already, and dig in quickly, before it cools off.

Smoked Salmon Carbonara

[printable recipe]

This rich, comforting,  if unconventional, carbonara comes together quickly — less than 30 minutes. You can do the prep while you’re waiting for the pasta water to boil. It’s a good idea to warm your pasta bowls, too, as this dish gets cold quick once it’s done. It makes three hearty servings, but you can stretch it to four reasonable size portions, especially if you serve a side salad and crusty bread. Wine pairing: I drink a dry rosé (not surprising if you know me) but an unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay pairs well, too.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

1/2 pound linguine
2 to 3 tablespoons kosher salt

2 strips of bacon, sliced into 1/4-inch strips crosswise
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup dry rosé or dry white wine

2 large eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnishing
1/4 cup half-and-half
Generous pinch fresh grated nutmeg

1 (6.5 oz.) can high quality smoked salmon, drained

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Bring 5-1/2 to 6 quarts of cold water to a boil in a large pot. Stir in salt when water comes to a full boil.
2. Stir in pasta, constantly stirring until pasta is submerged and soft. Reduce heat to medium-high (just enough to get a gentle but active boil).
3. Place bacon in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook until almost crisp, about four to five minutes, then stir in garlic. Cook until garlic is fragrant, about a minute, and then deglaze pan with 1/4 cup wine, scraping up the browned bacon bits. Cook until the wine is reduced to 2 tablespoons.
4. Whisk the eggs, Parmesan, half-and-half, and nutmeg together in a bowl or measuring cup while the bacon is cooking and set aside.
5. Drain pasta when it is al dente (about 7 to 8 minutes total cooking time). Reserve about a half a cup of the pasta cooking water.
6. Place the hot pasta into the deglazed skillet with the bacon and garlic. Turn off the heat.
7. Pour the egg mixture into the hot pasta, tossing quickly as you pour. Stir in the drained can of salmon, breaking up the big lumps.
8. Stir in reserved pasta water if the sauce seems too thick. Sometimes I need 1/4 cup, other times I use 1/2 cup. The sauce should look creamy.
9. Stir in the black pepper. Toss well to distribute the pepper. Taste and if desired, season with more pepper and/or kosher salt.
10. Divide among warmed pasta bowls and garnish with more Parmesan. Serve immediately.

NOTE: Recipe halves easily, but if you want to double, only double the amount of pasta, and 1.5 times the remaining ingredients.

Funny thing, I was hunting for truffle oil, not pepper sauces.

But four pepper sauces were tucked in my box of truffle oil. They were a gift from the small business that makes both truffle oil (from Oregon white truffles) and now pepper sauces.

I contacted the company  – Oregon Truffle Oil, Inc. — and explained that I don’t ask for or generally accept free product. (In the interest of full disclosure, most, but not all, of the cookbooks Linda Avery reviews for Pen & Fork are sent to her from publishers.) I asked the company for a bill for the sauces I didn’t order. They countered with, how about we send you an invoice for the extra shipping? Fine.

So, these sauces were free (save the extra $5 shipping plus the original $51 order I placed for their truffle oils — more on those another time).

All four sauces ($8 each, or $25 for all four) are wheat free and contain no preservatives. The first ingredient is Pinot Noir wine, hence the name Pinot & ____. It makes sense. The company is based in Willamette Valley, Oregon, arguably home of the best American Pinot Noirs.

In fact, all four have a winey nose when you take a sniff. The wine taste, however, is lost in a myriad of other flavors, but it seems to be a good base for a sauce, just as tomato concentrate is.

All four sauces contain gluten-free soy sauce, and cornstarch as a thickener. From there, it’s lemon juice and/or distilled vinegar for tartness, some brown sugar to cut the acid, and salt and spices.

Sodium content ranges from 170 mg (7%) to 370 mg (15%) per tablespoon, which seems low to normal for sauces, but all taste salty straight from the bottle. Could be because soy sauce is the second ingredient and table salt is also listed in the ingredient list. For comparison, my beloved A-1 sauce has 280 mg (12%) of sodium per tablespoon. Once I cooked with the Pinot sauces, however, the saltiness mellowed, although it did impact how much additional salt I used.

The most intriguing of the bunch is the Pinot Szechuan. It has Chinese 5-Spice notes and a hefty heat kick. According to the ingredient list, it gets its kick from habanero chile, not Sichuan peppercorns (perhaps Sichuan peppercorns are included in the generic “spices” ingredient). No matter, it’s still an intriguing sauce.

The chipotle flavored sauce is appropriately smoky, and the habanero is appropriately fruity hot — make that HOT, but in a pleasant lip-numbing way – (it has a touch of orange peel, and even chipotle to add some smokiness). In fact, the habanero might be my favorite, and I’ll try it out in creamy coleslaw and even on a baked potato. (Why not? I have been known to load up a baked potato with A-1 sauce instead of butter. Try it.)

I used the Pinot & Pepper Sauce to make the Bloody Jack, a recipe included with the sauces. It wasn’t the best bloody Mary I’ve ever tasted (that would be this one) but then again, I never claimed to be a cocktail maven (smoothie savant, yes, cocktail savant, no).

Still, it was a fine bloody Mary (I garnished it with feta stuffed olives from Queen Creek Olive Mill) and it made reading the local newspaper all the more fun.

CZAR’S Bloody Jack

(adapted from CZAR’s Fine Foods)

Makes 1 small cocktail

Ingredients:

3 ounces tomato juice (I used low-sodium V-8)
1-1/2 ounces vodka
1 ounce Pinot-Pepper Sauce
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 ounce lemon juice (about 1/4 of a medium lemon)

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker (without ice). Shake and strain mixture over a small cocktail glass filled with ice. Garnish with celery stick, cucumber spear or olives.

UPDATE 1-22-2012: Just got word that these Lamb Roast dinners have been cancelled. Too bad, because we’d bought tickets and were looking forward to meeting this dynamic duo and eating local lamb. 

Former Phoenician Tamara Reynolds sings for fun (she studied to be an opera singer at ASU) but she cooks for a living (and fun, too) in New York City.

Reynolds’ underground supper club, The Sunday Night Dinner in Astoria, started innocently enough 10 years ago. She and friends started cooking dinner at home and inviting other friends who brought even more friends. Word spread and soon the table of friends of friends grew and she realized she had a business.

The supper club spawned a cookbook, Forking Fantastic: Put the Party Back in Dinner Party, as well as appearances in Jamie Oliver’s documentary Jamie’s American Road Trip, Unique Eats and Food(ography) on the Cooking Channel. Now she’s working on bringing her own show to the Cooking Channel, tentatively titled Married with Dishes. She blames all of this culinary windfall on inviting strangers into her home for dinner.

Reynolds is coming home to Phoenix, bringing a little bit of her supper club with her. For three nights only starting January 29, Reynolds and her friend Chef Millicent Souris of Resto in NYC and author of the upcoming Let Them Eat Pie: How To Build A Better Pie will host pop up lamb roast dinners at the downtown Phoenix Public Market.

The duo is sourcing local Arizona lamb and gathering vegetables from Crooked Sky Farms, as well as seeking out other locally made products to incorporate in the dinners. The menu is mouthwatering:

Golden & Chiogga Beet Pickle Slices with Honey Whipped Goat Cheese & Biscuits

Greens with Fennel, Radish & Grapefruit

Spit-Roasted Lamb with Pomegranate Glaze

Lebanese Slow-Cooked Beans & Chickpeas with Cumin & Smoked Paprika

Grilled Endive, Chicory & Oranges with Miso Butter

Caramelized Date Upside-Down Cake

If you go, ask Reynolds to serenade you. We hear her voice is angelic.

Details:
Pop Up Lamb Roast with Tamara Reynolds and Millicent Souris
Phoenix Public Market, January 29 at 5 p.m. and January 30 and 31 at 6 p.m.
$55 per person, wine is included
Purchase tickets: http://popuplambroastinphx.eventbrite.com/

photo courtesy of Tamara Reynolds

We think you’d really like to have this book, so we bought you one. We’re thoughtful that way. And, we also had the chef sign it!

(Fess-up time — actually, we only bought one of you a copy (we’re thoughtful but we’re not rich).  However, YOU might win the book. All you have to do is leave a comment telling us what your favorite BBQ dish is.)

Maybe you like ribs. Bryan’s BBQ ribs were featured in Grub Street’s Big-City Barbecue: 101 Places to Satisfy Your Urban ‘Cue Craving.

Or maybe you love brisket or pulled pork or who knows what you like? Tell us and we’ll put your name in the drawing for the signed copy of the book. If you entry is the random number winner, we’ll mail you a copy of Bryan’s book. It’ that simple.

Fine print: Only one entry per person. Deadline to enter is Friday, January 20th, 2012, at midnight (EST). Winner will be notified via email on Saturday, January 21, 2012. USA addresses only for shipping.

Cook This Now

by Melissa Clark
photos by Andrew Scrivani

Facts: Hyperion, 416 pages, $29.99 (or Amazon at $19.79)
Photos: 21
Recipes: 137 (see Note)
Give To: cooks looking for seasonal inspiration

Cook This Now by Melissa Clark topped Epicurious’ Best Books of 2011 and Clark is all about seasonal cooking.

She sets the stage from the start with content pages listing recipes by month, when their main ingredients can be optimally obtained. Of course, there are plenty of crossovers and nothing will stop you from having November’s Carroty Mac and Cheese if you have a hankering in March.

Each recipe has an addendum, which I really like, dubbed “What Else?” This is where she notes suggestions for substitutions and other information such as buying Atlantic or Spanish mackerel rather than the larger king mackerel with a higher mercury content, or substituting a combination of a lemon and a tangerine for a similar flavor if you don’t happen to have Meyer lemons on hand.

Note: The dustcover of this book announces 120 recipes but that doesn’t include the 17 bonus recipes from Melissa Clark’s cookbook In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite

Also, for space considerations, we cut Ms. Clark’s engaging headnote down a bit. (Sorry, you’ll just have to buy the book to read every delicious word.)

Grilled Sausages with Celery Root Salad with Hazelnuts and Arugula

photo © by Andrew Scrivani

During my junior year abroad in Paris, in between gobbling warm croissants, raw milk cheeses, and countless macaroons, I ate an awful lot of celery root rémoulade.

I never bothered making celery root rémoulade when I was in Paris because it was ubiquitous and cheap. But once I got back to New York, if I wanted any more of the silky, savory salad, I’d have to tackle the homely root and whip some up myself.

And that’s the thing about celery root rémoulade. It starts with celery roots, which, with their hairy skins and muddy crevices, are never going to be the most inviting vegetable in the bin. But once those roots are peeled and grated, a quick toss with lemony, mustard-imbued mayonnaise will make the most of their inner beauty.

These days, my celery root salad of choice is a lighter take on a rémoulade. Instead a mayonnaise, I use a zippy mustard vinaigrette, and serve the salad on a bed of tangy arugula topped with hazelnuts for crunch. It’s marvelous as a first course on its own. Or to make it mealworthy, grill up your favorite sausages-lamb sausages are particularly good-and serve them alongside the salad, letting the mustard from the vinaigrette sauce the sausages and the sausage grease flavor the salad.

Serves 4

Ingredients
For the mustard vinaigrette
1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus 1 small pinch
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 1/4 pounds sausages, whatever kind you like

For the salad
1 medium celery root, trimmed and peeled (see What Else? below)
5 cups arugula or other salad green, torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 cups finely chopped toasted hazelnuts

Method
Make the mustard vinaigrette
1. With a mortar and pestle or using the flat side of a knife, smash the garlic and tiny pinch of salt to make a paste. Whisk it in a small bowl with the mustard, vinegar, and remaining salt. Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the oil until fully incorporated. Season with pepper.

2. Preheat the broiler. Prick the sausages all over with a fork, then lay them on a baking sheet. Broil them about 3 inches from the heat until browned on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side (exactly how long will depend on your oven and the thickness of your sausage).

Make the salad
1. Fit a food processor with a large grating blade; grate the celery root. You can also use a box grater, though beware your knuckles. Transfer to a large bowl and add the salad greens and hazelnuts. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss well. season with more salt, lemon juice, and/or olive oil if needed before serving.

What Else?

• This recipe calls for a medium celery root, which is about the same size as a large navel orange (4 or 5 inches in diameter). If you can only get one of the giant, grapefruit-size roots, use about three-quarters of it. Or use it all; just make a little extra vinaigrette to make sure it’s well seasoned.
• Trimming the celery root is probably the hardest and most annoying thing about this recipe. You can use a sharp vegetable peeler, but a sharp paring knife is more efficient.  Either way, be prepared to go deep. You will likely need to hack off about a quarter inch of the surface to get past the divots of dirt.
• This goes really well with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes. To make them, try this: boil the potatoes (unpeeled) in plenty of water until very soft. Drain, let cool, then slip them off the skins. In the same pot you used to boil the potatoes, heat some milk or chicken stock seasoned with salt until simmering. Add the potatoes and a lump of butter (use as much as you can bear; my tolerance is high), and mash with a potato masher or fork over very low heat until as smooth as you like it. We like lumps. Sometimes I leave the skin on the potatoes. Serve all at once.