Andi & Julia: January Goal

My goal for the month of January was to cook a meal taken entirely from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Since most of the recipes are supposed to serve six, and I didn't want to try halving the recipes, I invited two friends whose potlucks, dinner parties, and food experimentation always inspire me: Carlos and Lana. Along with Gabriel, I figured the four of us could handle food for six, leaving me with a few leftovers. When choosing a menu I had a few things I kept in mind. My first constraint was the lack of a good heavy dutch oven that can go between the stove-top and the oven. I also wanted to cook either a chicken or a beef dish for the main course. As for the dessert, I wanted to choose a cake, simply because it would be a little more in my comfort zone. Here's the final menu:

Boston Bibb Letuce Salad with Sauce Vinaigrette
with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and almonds

Sauté de Boeuf à la Bourguignonne
with mushrooms, bacon, and onions

Pomme de Terre Sautées en Dés

French Baguette

Reine De Saba
with chocolate-butter icing and almonds

I actually started my preparation (on the last Saturday of January) by making the cake, but let me first describe the main part of the meal. I sautéed the mushrooms for the beef burgundy first, and then made the glazed baby onions. That was what I used the bouquet garni seen at the beginning of the post for. Then I started cutting the potatoes into a small dice. The sautéed potatoes were the suggested side dish for the beef, but rather than the "elongated olive shape" suggested in the main recipe, or potato balls, formed using a "potato-ball cutter," I chose the much simpler dice. They went in a non-stick pan with butter and olive oil, and at this point, Gabriel took over the potatoes. He was much more talented than I at the shaking and flipping required to keep the potatoes from sticking or cooking too much on one side. The beef dish was actually the faster sauté version of the famous boeuf bourguignonne that was such a big deal for the food-blogger Julie in Julie & Julia. So I started by browning the sirloin steak, leaving it a little rare in the middle. Then I started on the really fantastic sauce: red wine, garlic, beef stock, and tomato paste, all thickened with a beurre manié (a paste of butter and flour, whisked in at the end). At the very end, Gabriel helped me assemble the salad and shake up the vinaigrette in a mason jar.

I felt a little overwhelmed near the end, and almost forgot a few important parts of the sauce for the beef, but sitting down at the table with my friends and a glass of wine, I felt it was all worth it. The salad was a good combination of the tangy dressing and the sweet tomatoes, the creamy cheese and the crunchy almonds. The potatoes were simple, dressed only in butter and herbs, but they were so smooth, with the texture almost like that of a risotto. (I've made them since, in an stainless steel pan, with much less success - non-stick is the way to go). The beef was tender and flavorful, but the big hit was the sauce, which I will admit we were sopping up with bread and eventually eating straight from the pan.

Now to the important part: dessert. The chocolate was set to melt in a bowl over simmering water, and the butter and sugar were creamed together. And then, partly because I wanted to try it by hand, and partly because I didn't want to wash the beaters I had used for the butter and sugar, and beat my egg-whites by hand. It was tiring, and it took a little bit longer, but it resulted in a finer and more consistent foam. And holding up my whisk and seeing stiff peaks felt a lot more rewarding than when I use electric beaters. I mixed the chocolate with the butter and almond meal, and then carefully folded in the whites and flour. I poured it into a 9 in. pan (although the recipe called for a 8 in pan) and put it into the oven. I should have modified the cooking time because I changed the pan size, but I didn't think about it. So my cake turned out a little less moist than it was supposed to, but it still tasted delicious.

I made the chocolate-butter icing after dinner (wearing pearls, of course) and spread it on the cake. We took a break from playing my favorite game, Pictionary, to dig into the cake. And though I won't reveal who won *both* games of Pictionary, I will say that the cake was a winner. :) So the completion of my first goal for the year was a success. I see more meals inspired by Julia Child in the future...

Potluck 1/28 - Peaches!

The theme for the last potluck in January was "Travel." I had flown in from a research collaboration trip earlier that Thursday, and was only hosting because no one else had volunteered. I had a new Peruvian cookbook, so I decided to try making Arroz con Leche, or rice pudding. I had rice, but needed condensed and evaporated milk, an orange, and some port. So I went out to my car, turned the key, and... sighed in frustration. The bitter cold had agitated my finicky car battery, and my car wouldn't start. I called Gabriel and he agreed to pick up the food items at the new campus area grocery store while I went to a nearby liquor store for port.

I followed the directions, but felt that there was not enough rice for the prescribed amount of liquid. So I turned up the heat and figured I'd boil it away. Silly me: condensed milk+too hot pan+stepping away to put out dishes=terrible burnt milk smell. I rushed to the stove, turned off the gas, and started frantically stirring. Of course, that aggravated the problem, as I was now mixing liquidy (but unburnt) rice pudding with the horribly burnt stuff. I transferred the pudding to another pan, skimming out the blackened bits, and hoped someone would bring a better dessert. I was in luck: Geoffrey brought flourless chocolate cake (hallelujah!), and we also had salad and stuffed shells to round out the meal.

Now you're probably looking at this picture, thinking, "But Andi, I don't see anything like cake or salad or stuffed shells. All I see is beer!" I swear we did eat, but the talk of the party was really the beer. Mike brought this Audacious Apricot Ale, that we happily drank. I used to like a good fruity beer, but now I usually don't. Except for this one. It was delicious, and some of us began to wax eloquent about it. "It tastes like sitting on a porch, sipping something cool, on a warm summer evening after a hard day of work outdoors," I said. Lana said it reminded her of sitting in a field, eating a picnic consisting of small bites of different foods. Carlos was perhaps less of a fan, saying that it made him think of asking for the barkeep's recommendation, and then being disappointed. Mike was reminded of the first time he tried this particular beer, standing in the circle of a beer-tasting club, sipping beers and describing them. When Ed was asked what he thought of when he drank the beer, he replied, "Peaches!"

We've had the beer again since then, but not the rice pudding. Take from that what you will...

Thanks Mike for introducing us to such a conversation-sparking beer!

Potluck 1/21 - The Happiest Potluck on Earth

The January 21st potluck was declared a Disney potluck by the host, Kristin. When we walked in, Beauty and the Beast was playing on the TV, and all of us college and graduate students stood transfixed, wine or beer in hand, listening to Gaston sing about how many raw eggs he eats every morning. Then we contemplated why Belle doesn't seem to actually eat anything during "Be Our Guest" (except for sticking her finger into a pudding or two). All that incredible food gone to waste! The gray pudding, though, I have always found a little off-putting. And because some of us are also musical theatre nerds (thanks Geoffrey), we imagined Angela Lansbury merging her Mrs. Potts character with her Mrs. Lovett character from Sweeney Todd ("here we are... hot out of the oven!"). It's not that much of a stretch, but it puts a whole new spin on things.

As for the food, we had a fine collection of Disney inspired dishes. There was jambalaya for Disney's new movie, The Princess and the Frog, frozen chocolate covered bananas for The Jungle Book, and my favorite, spaghetti and meatballs from The Lady and the Tramp. However, not all of the food was connected to a specific movie. I made crisp but tender chocolate almond cookies called Basler Brunsli (I figured that wearing Mickey ears was Disney enough for me). And, in the spirit of Disneyworld being the happiest place on earth, I cut my cookies into flower and heart shapes, since I didn't have mouse-ear cookie cutters.
Part of why I chose these cookies (besides that fact that they sounded delicious), is that they use the German cherry liquor Kirsch. I bought a rather large bottle of it for the cranberry cake I made for the previous potluck. I still have hardly made a dent, but I have made these cookies a second time since potluck, and I certainly plan on making them again. They were that good. And here's the recipe!

Basler Brunsli - Adapted from recipe at deliciousdays

5.3 oz dark chocolate*

2 1/2 cups almonds meal**

1/2 cup+2Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup sugar***

a pinch of salt

1/2 cup+2Tbsp all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

4 large egg whites

2 Tbsp Kirsch (cherry liquor)

*Trader Joe's carries a 3-pack of small 1.25 oz chocolate bars that is enough for this recipe (plus a little for snacking)

**Again, you can find this at Trader Joe's next to the nuts!

***The original recipe calls for a little over 3/4 of a cup. I made a mistake in my weight->volume conversions the first time and used 1/4 cup. They tasted so good, that when I made them later, I used 1/2 cup and it was perfect.

1. Break up the chocolate and put it in a small glass bowl set over simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Let the chocolate melt slowly as your prepare the other ingredients, stirring occaisionally.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the almond meal, cocoa, sugar, salt, and flour.

3. In a seperate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, and then fold them into the almond mixture.

4. Finally, add the chocolate and the kirsch. If you plan on saving the dough to bake up later, put in a little extra kirsch, since the cherry flavor seems to fade the longer you keep it in the fridge.

5. Knead until everything is incorporated, then separate the dough into 2 or 3 sections, and form them into disks. Wrap this in plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for an hour.

6. Preheat oven to 450˚, and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

7. On a lightly floured surface (I used my new Silpat for this!) roll out the dough to 5mm (~0.2 inches) thick. It may take a few minutes sitting out of the fridge before it is malleable enough to roll. Cut into desired shapes. Place cookies on cookie sheet. They can be pretty close together, since these cookies don't expand.

8. Bake for 5-7 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cookies, and how crisp you want them. They should be crisp on the outside, and tender and crumbly on the inside.

Potluck 1/14 - The Great Reunion

I say this potluck was the great reunion... but only because I was on an airplane somewhere over Lake Michigan when the real first potluck of the year occurred the week before. There were many delicious dishes at potluck (lemon-egg soup, an Indian dish with mushrooms, spaghetti, a tuna bake), but the stars, in my opinion, were the cinnamon rolls and buns made by our gracious hostess, Lana. I wondered if she would share the recipe, but found out that there was something better she had to share - a great story about family and the origins of the recipe. It doesn't hurt that Lana's specialty is writing... so, I'm happy to bring you Lana's story about her grandmothers buns. Since there's no recipe accompanying the story (it's a family treasure, I'm told,) I've included at the end a recipe for my contribution, cranberry cake.

For potluck on January 14, I made buns. And more buns. There were two kinds: cloverleaf buns and cinnamon buns. Both came from the same batch of dough, which I made using my grandmother’s recipe. Cloverleaf buns are my grandma’s specialty. She brings them to every family holiday gathering, and she has been making the same ones for as long as I can remember: little golden, airy, buttery puffs. I remember when I was very young, being in the kitchen of the farmhouse where my grandparents lived at the time, and watching them make these buns together. There was a woodstove in the corner near the door, and my grandparents would place bowls of dough covered with tea towels near the stove so the dough could rise in the warmth, away from any drafts. That is such a strong image for me, the magic and mystery that happened under those covered bowls.

I remember watching my grandparents make the buns, and having the privilege of “helping.” They used very specific techniques that they had created and revised and honed over many years. To make the cloverleaf shape, you must shape three small balls of dough for each bun and place them together in muffin pans. When they rise and bake, the little groups of dough expand into the right shape. However, my grandparents didn’t shape the balls just by rolling them. They used a method which involves placing a piece of dough in the palm of one hand and then shaping it with the fingers of your other hand. Watching them shape each piece of dough so deftly was like watching master artists at work. I remember being given pieces of dough to shape and being so slow at forming just one ball that I am sure my grandparents finished whole trays of buns while I worked at my one little piece.

Jump ahead in time to 2010. I just moved to Madison about five months ago, and with no job yet, I have a lot of time on my hands. To fill some of that time (and to have food to bring to potlucks!) I decided it was time to learn how to bake. I am 800 miles from my grandma (and my mom, who is also an excellent cook and baker) and now I decide I want to learn!

I started off with quick breads, cookies, cakes and pies. My mom emailed me recipes and advice and I asked her questions over MSN as I went. It was like having a personal online tutor! I enjoyed those lessons, but the time came when I thought it would be fun to try to make my grandmother’s fabled buns. My mom didn’t know how to make them nor did she have the recipe, so our online lessons weren’t going to get me very far. My grandma thought about writing out her instructions and mailing them to me, but she said that the best way for me to learn would really be in person, because so much of her process involves instinct and knowing how the dough should feel. So we decided to wait and do a lesson when I took a trip home. And that’s what we did. One afternoon in November, my grandma taught me her secrets. I won’t divulge them all here, but I will write a little of what she told me. She said that when she was young, the people she knew who made bread would try to add as much flour as the dough would hold. They ended up with really tough, heavy breads. My grandmother thought there must be another way to do it, so she set out to experiment with ways to make breads the way she thought they should be. She came up with her own method and recipe, and the result is indescribable; her buns are truly the lightest, airiest bread products I have ever tasted. I’m still working on mastering the technique--mine don’t come out nearly as light as hers do--but she has a whole lifetime of practice on me!

I am still learning and I am far from perfecting anything I have baked, especially the buns. But I feel incredibly honored to know my grandmother’s special recipe, and to be able to share her buns with the potluck crowd!

Thanks, Lana! And thanks to both you and Carlos (pictured above) for hosting potluck!

Here is the recipe for my contribution, which I found at The Kitchn, and made one or two changes to. (Go here for the original recipe!)

Cranberry Cake
makes 1 9x13 or 1 10" springform cake (I used a 9x13 pan)

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened and cut into chunks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon kirsch (optional)
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups cranberries, defrosted if frozen

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan or a 10" springform pan.

Beat eggs and sugar together for 5-7 minutes, until they are pale yellow. Add butter and flavorings and beat for 2 minutes. Stir in flour and fold in cranberries. The dough will be rather stiff, especially if the cranberries are still cold. Turn out into the greased pan. If including the nut topping shown below (you should!) spread it on at this time

Bake 45-50 minutes for a 9x13, or a little over an hour for the springform. You made need to tent the cake with foil in the last 15 minutes or so to keep the top from browning.

Cool completely before serving.

Optional nut topping:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup nuts, like walnuts or pecans, broken into halves or quarters

Heat the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the sugar and stir. Add the nuts and cook for several minutes, stirring, until the butter and sugar mixture is shiny and smooth and the nuts smell toasted. Spread over the cake batter and bake as above.

La cocina peruana

Over winter break I had the opportunity to travel to beautiful Peru with my boyfriend, Gabriel, to meet his family and see the sights. I spent time in Lima and in various places in the Sacred Valley of the Andes. Naturally we went to Machu Picchu, and it was breathtaking (figuratively and literally - at an altitude of 8,000 ft above sea level). This abandoned city of the Incas is hidden in the mountains, and although the locals have probably always known about it (since it was built in 1430 AD), it was only discovered in 1911 by a guy named Hiram Bingham, from Hawaii. I could keep spouting facts about the Incas and their building styles and methods, but you could always just find that on Wikipedia. What Wikipedia won't tell you is how absolutely delicious Peruvian food is. (There is a nice article on Peruvian cuisine, but, in order to be objective, it doesn't speak to the tastiness of the food.)

The first half of the trip was spent in the Sacred Valley, traveling from Cuzco, to a little lodge just outside of Calca, passing through Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu, and then back to Cuzco. Our first afternoon at the lodge, I had kabobs with chicken and peaches (pollo con duraznos). That evening I ordered the chef's special trucha a la teja. My limited Spanish vocabulary does include trucha, which means trout. I learned that teja is a roof tile (along with being a tasty majar blanco-filled confection). To my surprise, I was presented with a whole trout cooked on a real roof tile. It was pretty rare, and I was being careful about what I was eating, so I had it cooked a little more. I'm glad I did, because it returned perfectly cooked and tender. Along with the mashed potatoes served along-side (fact: potatoes originated in Peru!), the fish was filled with a lot of garlic and an herb which I think was parsley. It was also filled with bones. After I got the hang of eating the meat from around the bones, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was a fairly large trout, so my oh-so-helpful boyfriend assisted me in finishing it.

The next morning for breakfast there was an array of fruit, which included sliced papaya and tiny, incredibly sweet mountain strawberries, yogurt (which was much more liquid-y than yogurt here) , eggs, bacon, and the typical Andean bread. It was simple but delicious. That afternoon we attended a wedding reception at the lodge, after which there was large buffet of Peruvian food. I tried some of the classic Peruvian dishes, like lomo saltado (beef, onions, and peppers in a soy-sauce-based sauce), rocoto relleno (rocoto peppers stuffed with meat, olives, egg, and a bunch of other things), ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon or lime juice and peppers), and arroz con leche (Peruvian rice-pudding, or rice with milk) for dessert. I also tried the alpaca carpaccio with gorgonzola sauce... which I didn't realize was alpaca at the time. Finally, to toast the couple celebrating their wedding, we raised glasses of pisco sour. Pisco is a Peruvian liquor distilled from grapes, and probably considered the national spirit. In fact, although the customs form going into Peru didn't make a big deal about bringing in plant, animal, or food products (like the form for entering the US), it made very clear that liquors purporting to be pisco, but were not of peruvian origin, were strictly not allowed.

The next day, Gabriel and I set off with our backpacks to journey to Machu Picchu. While waiting for the train in Ollantaytambo, we had Peruvian corn with cheese (choclo con queso) from a street vendor. The corn kernels there are at least two times as large as American sweet corn, and not as sweet. The cheese tucked into the serving husk with the cob is a salty fresh cheese very common in the Andes. Walking past street vendors, I saw quite a few fruits that I didn't recognize among the bottles of Inca Kola and SD cards for digital cameras. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about world foods, but my ignorance about even the most common fruits in Peru humbled me. For instance, always in the fruit basket at the family's home were granadillas. People eat this yellow-orange fig-shaped fruit by pulling off a section of the rind, and eating the grey pulp-covered seeds with a spoon (or with their hands, if they are being casual). The lúcuma fruit is also important to Peruvian cuisine. Although I never saw a fresh lúcuma, I enjoyed plenty of lúcuma-flavored tortes, custards, and puddings.

After seeing Machu Picchu, eating more traditional Peruvian food, and traveling by train and by cab, we arrived in Cuzco again. The next day we spent shopping (ooo alpaca scarves and sweaters!) and touring churches and Inca ruins in and around the city. Both our tour-guide and Gabriel's brother recommended the same restaurant, so for dinner we went to Incanto, just off the main square in Cuzco. We arrived early for dinner (by Peruvian standards), so we were practically alone in the spacious, cleanly decorated restaurant. I was given an English menu (despite food-words being probably my only strong point in Spanish). The cuisine was mainly Italian, with a Peruvian twist. For an appetizer we had bruschetta with house-cured alpaca, sun-dried tomatoes (oil-packed, not dry), and goat cheese. They were so good, and I was so hungry that by the time I thought to take a picture they were gone.

For dinner, I ordered spinach and ricotta Malfatti (meaning poorly-formed in Italian, they are little dumplings of cheese and spinach). As you can see in the picture above, they were dressed with a tomato sauce and lots of delicious gorgonzola cheese. Gabriel ordered the ravioli de "Aji de Gallina." Aji de gallina is another ubiquitous Peruvian dish. Shredded chicken is cooked in a really fantastic yellow sauce made of aji peppers. This is usually served with an olive and a hard-boiled egg over rice. This particular dish is a good example of the subtlety of Peruvian cooking. The aji pepper doesn't make the dish particularly spicy-hot, but it does impart a deep pepper taste. It has the flavor of something that is spicy, without being so hot that you can't eat it. Anyway, the ravioli were stuffed with chicken and served in the aji sauce. Gabriel approved.

For dessert we split the torta húmeda de chocolate (moist chocolate cake). This is definitely something I am going to try to replicate. The cake had alternating layers of cake and mousse, with a chocolate ganache and chocolate shavings on top. It was good, as far as chocolate cakes go, but what really made the dessert was the lime-mint shaved-ice (like a very tart granita?) served in a shot-glass alongside. The tart lime and cool mint balanced the rich chocolate perfectly. For me, a chocolate cake is the litmus test of a restaurant. Anybody can make something sweet and chocolaty - but it takes skill to make something that is both sweet and rich, but which is not so cloying that you can only eat one bite of it. And Incanto passed the test with flying colors.

My trip to Peru included many more exciting edibles. There was the homemade causa, the huge and delicious turkey for Christmas dinner, the visit to a Peruvian Chinese restaurant (called a chifa), and lots of panettone. The food only made an otherwise wonderful trip better. In short, I can't wait to go back, but until then, I'll try making some dishes from my new Peruvian cookbook. :)

The Ducken-hen

One day last fall, my friend Jeska called me and asked me if I might be interested in helping her create a Turducken. Did she even have to ask? I was already thinking about what kinds of stuffing to use, and if we should wrap the whole thing in bacon. Naturally, I accepted her offer.

When we saw each other next, we discussed how we were preparing. I had watched some videos on youtube about deboning a chicken, and had scheduled a practice deboned chicken into my meal plan. She had talked to a few butchers and chefs, and was feeling a bit worried about the whole thing. There was the general impression that making a whole Turducken was more hassle than it was worth. But, what can I say? We were drawn to the challenge, and we finalized that we would serve the Turducken as the main course of an upcoming potluck.

The week before the potluck, I watched this video, and, with the help of my boyfriend rewinding parts while I confusedly poked around leg-joints, successfully deboned a chicken. (I also consulted Julia Child's instructions for deboning poultry in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.) I filled it with garlic and rosemary, rolled it and tied it, and made Roast Boned Chicken from The Guardian. Jeska picked two stuffing recipes, and we considered who would buy and defrost the birds. Neither of us had the time or space to correctly defrost a whole turkey at that time, and we worried that we would have to back out of our planned Turducken feast. Instead of canceling, we decided to punt and make a Ducken - simply stuff a chicken in a duck. And then when I was at the grocery store to buy the birds, I saw little Cornish game hens in the case next to the ducks, and I picked one up just for kicks. And so the Ducken-hen was born.

The day before potluck, Jeska, her friend William, and I met at her co-op to prepare the birds and stuffing. First we whipped up two stuffing recipes: a basic stuffing with mushrooms, and a sausage, apple and cranberry stuffing. I don't often cook in other people's kitchens, especially big co-op kitchens! It's strange not to know where everything is, but the collection of utensils and the rack of large jars full of tea and spices made up for feeling out of place. Once we had two bowls full of stuffing set aside, we removed the defrosted birds from the fridge and set up large pans as prep areas. Armed with small knives, we began what we believed would be the most difficult part of the process. Jeska demonstrated properly stretching the birds by helping them do shoulder rolls. She worked on the chicken (with William's help on the legs), and I tackled the duck and game hen.

I successfully deboned the duck first. (We left the lower leg-bones and wings on the duck, since it would be on the outside.) Although the duck weighed almost a pound more than the chicken (which was a pound and a half more than the game hen), the duck had less meat. It was significantly fattier and the carcass was larger and longer. The video I watched to prepare me for deboning poultry warned that smaller birds were more difficult than larger birds, but I found that removing the bones from the game hen was pretty simple. Once you know how to handle the joints to the wings and legs, the whole business boils down to not slipping while you are carving.

With three birds deboned, we started layering them with the stuffing. The game hen was easy enough to skewer closed around the stuffing. The chicken was difficult but not impossible to close around the stuffing and smaller stuffed bird. The duck, however, who fooled us into thinking he was larger with his heavier weight, simply would not close around the chicken. This was the only point during the process that I wished we had planned ahead well enough to use a turkey. A 15 lb turkey surely would have had ample room to hold a duck, even a duck which would not close around the chicken inside it. We tried using four or five skewers, all at different angles, to secure the duck. Then we started cutting lengths of kitchen twine to tie around the mass of poultry. With hands tying twine, jabbing with skewers, and desperately trying to hold the whole thing together, it felt a bit like a dramatic scene in Grey's Anatomy. We finally managed to secure the outer bird to our liking, and we put our anatine/galline* Frankenstein's monster in the fridge to stay cold overnight.

The next day our Franken-fowl got some salt and pepper, and went into the oven for the timerescribed by its weight. When I next saw it, it was plump and golden brown - practically begging to be eaten. Our fellow potluckers didn't disappoint when it came to sides. We had gravy, mashed potaotes, luscious chocolate tortes, and a whole tub of local, fresh-picked grapes. And the Ducken-hen? Well, although we never got the beautifully layered look when we cut into it, the meat was moist, tender, and tasty, all the way through. I had one of the duck legs, which was so flavorful and tender, that I was convinced I definitely need to cook duck more often. The already delicious stuffing was improved by the meat. In the end, only a few pieces of skin remained on the platter. In short, it was a success. Jeska and I vowed to take on the full Turducken next. If trussing the too-small bird was the hardest part, then using a large turkey could only make the next time easier. What could go wrong?


*anatine means "duck-like", and galline means "chicken-like"

The New Year in Food

I am finally back from a rather long winter vacation in Peru, Omaha, and Albuquerque. Before that I was finishing up the semester. But enough with the excuses - I just am not in the habit of writing a blog post regularly. So, in the spirit of the new year, I come to you with a resolution and some cooking goals.

First and foremost, I resolve to blog regularly, both about Thursday potlucks, and about the other exciting food events in my life.

During my flight home a few days ago, I was reading the latest issue of Saveur, which included 100 food topics submitted by readers. The wide variety of topics covered, along with my experiences with new and different food in Peru (more on that in an upcoming post!), inspired me to tackle 12 culinary tasks that I've either put off trying or been intimidated by.

Here is my list, with each task assigned to a month:

January: Cook a meal drawn entirely from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This was a birthday gift from my wonderful boyfriend, so I'm guessing he will be invited to this meal...

February: Cook a dish including mussels and/or oysters. The whole shell business has always unnerved me, and only recently have I learned to enjoy eating mussels and oysters. Cooking them is the next step!

March: Make a yeast bread. Maybe start with the no-knead type early on in the month and progress to something more intensive.

April: Make my own pasta. This looks fun, but I've never made the time for it. I'd like to try both gnocchi and egg noodles.

May: Bake a "Baked Alaska." Perhaps not as formidable as rolling out pasta, but the thermodynamics of ice cream inside a baked meringue shell is quite intriguing.

June: Eat entirely local for a day. Some people do this on a regular basis, and it shouldn't be too difficult in a food-centric state like Wisconsin. Maybe this will help me start better habits, even if I can't eat entirely local all of the time.

July: Make mulberry ice cream. We have a large mulberry tree in our back yard, which produces more fruit than I know what to do with. I'm also interested in experimenting with methods for making ice cream (or something similar to ice cream) that don't require an ice cream maker, which my small kitchen has no room for.

August: Make ceviche. I hope to include a lot more Peruvian cooking in my repertoire, but I'll admit that this marinated fish dish intimidates me a bit. It may take a resolution and someone's August birthday to get me to try it.

September: Make cherries jubilee. Late summer in Wisconsin is prime time for delicious fresh cherries, and what better way to celebrate Door County cherries than by setting your house on fire? Just kidding - but I would like to try flambeing something.

October: Cook an unusual meat. Our farmers' market routinely has ostrich meat, but I would also consider cooking rabbit or something else I've never tried before.

November: Brine a turkey. As far as I can tell, I'll be staying in Madison for Thanksgiving, which means I will probably host a meal of some kind. And while I've participated in numerous turkey roasts (during which Betty White makes dirty jokes about the turkey... or is that something else?) I've never brined a turkey.

December: Create some awesome homemade food gifts. I wont give away my ideas yet, but I'd like to share some kitchen joy with my dear friends next holiday season. The past two years have included biscotti, but I'd like to push the boundaries to include some non-baked goods.

So goes my plan for the year. I hope to fit this all in with work, school, community choir, and having some sort of social life... but, as I tell my hesitant-to-cook father, "You have to eat anyway, so you might as well have some fun with it!"

Coming up soon - the long awaited ducken-hen post... I know you can hardly wait.