Category: Food & Wine

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what are you baking right now?

Holidays are for cooking and baking!
Holidays are for cooking and baking & sharing!

Well, nothing brings our family together faster than talk about what’s to make, bake and cook! I think there is something in the untold common family experience that centers around the fire and sharing and consuming a good meal. You really learn about people when you work with them over the fire in a barbecue or in a kitchen.

This holiday season we have a lot planned some are events with themes for fun:

our GREEK NIGHT

the wines (whites & reds and a sweet):

(special note: Greek  wines — other than Retsina — are tough to find, allow me to recommend wine.com)

Boutari 2007 Santorini ( before the meal)
Boutari 2007 Moschofilero
Boutari 2006 Naoussa
Archaia Clauss Mavrodaphne

the food:

Tiropetes (Greek Cheese filled philo)

Dolmades ( delicious grape vines stuffed with rice and meat)

Moussaka ( a sort of Greek Lasagna with layers of thinly slices and cooked eggplant and custard topping)

Baklava ( nothing else will do)

Honey Pie ( a secret recipe — a favorite from one of the Greek Islands)

Karla wants something to do with a Rabbit this season and everyone wants Turducken, a wide assortment of pies and even a Baked Alaska is also on the list. I am always amazed at how so much can be prepared and then it’s gone! We are planning some fun with Kristin, Karen and some friends with my sweet and spicy ribs and Mom’s favorite Chinese sweet & sour pork.

lots to do and lots of fun!

Roger

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beer commercials just gotta be fun

beer commercials need to be fun... if not funny!
beer commercials need to be fun... if not funny!

One of the fun things about having intelligent daughters is that they keep my brain active. My daughters have always been able to kept my pulse raising, increase my worry & anxiety and fray my nerves… and yes, my they have kept my brain limber.

This summer,  Karen made a presentation to the Reputation Institute on the poorly received 2009 Superbowl commercial. It’s was like showing up to a party with a unhappy pet skunk. Heineken’s message was laudable, but the placement in the Superbowl was ill conceived. Fortunately for Heineken, most people tuned out the commercial and when asked later about what they saw, few people reported seeing anything about Heineken.

Anyway, this provided endless discussion on Skype and eventually Karen took her idea and developed a great project. In the meantime, I took my favorite cartoon character “Dilbert” and made a better commercial… IMHO. I looked up at my drawing and it still makes me smile.

Thanks girls for always making me think… and smile.

Roger

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IMHO the best pumpkin pie ever

"IMHO -- the best pumpkin pie ever!"

Nothing says ‘Thanksgiving’ better than a great pumpkin pie!

On this blog I have talked about using the best ingredients, taking the extra steps and following the best rules of the road — whether new or old — for developing your recipe into something memorable.

So it goes without saying that to make the best pumpkin pie ever, there must be a little from the old chef and a little new. Before evaporated milk there was cream and this is an old and delicious idea. The abundance and variety of spices one can use is a new and wonderful phenomenon. Adding a topping of glazed nuts makes it complete.

here is our recipe

Oh by the way, Nestle’ ( owns Libby and 80% of the Pumpkin Business) says it may not be able to supply the demand for Pumpkin… so… better go out and buy some or make a Sweet Potato pie.

Roger

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and what is in your turkey this year?

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Thanksgiving is one of the few universally enjoyed holidays in America and the ‘turkey’ is the star. Americans so love this bird that even Benjamin Franklin lobbied for the turkey rather than the eagle as our national bird! Although I do enjoy a plain bird with stuffing, on special occasions there is so much more we can do! I have prepared turkeys in all sorts of ways and there is nothing like a large bird to open the eyes of all the men gathered around! My oven limits what I can cook and a 44 lb was my largest. The size of the bird is one factor, but the flavor of many birds is quite an experience.

There is the  TURDUCKEN and it’s many variations. The bird within a bird recipe goes back hundreds of years and I think the record goes back to medieval France with 15 birds in one recipe. This year, we will prepare a simple bird for our Thanksgiving, but during Christmas time while everyone is home it will be a Turducken with a twist. This year we will use: a turkey, a goose, a duck (2) and a chicken along with a wonderful stuffing for each. Obviously, the turkey stuffing will have sausages, including everyone’s favorite… ‘pheasant sausage!’

Is it time to make it yet?

Roger

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cookbooks sometimes lie

a chocolate pie with heavy cream... and 'goop!'
a chocolate pie with heavy cream... and 'goop!'

I love reading cookbooks because they don’t always tell the truth. Often they will omit key steps or ingredients and the picture of the culinary marvel in the book may not always match up with the disaster you prepared.  For those of you who have blamed yourself, it may have not really been your fault.

There are some genuine reasons for the discrepancies. First, the pictured food product may not even be what it is purported to be! For example, an old photographer’s trick was to use flat Coca Cola to substitute for coffee in a layout. Why? Because, real coffee looks muddy with a matte finish in a photography while Coca Cola has the right glossy shine and deep black color.

However, another reason is that it might not even be the same product. This became apparent when I was asked recentl about WHY my ‘Meringue’ turned out so well. At first, I was going to tell the usual lies about how their Meringue didn’t work out because of the weather, phases of the moon or their marital happiness… but I opted for the ‘truth.’ Not everyone can handle the truth and the revelation that their cookbook had ‘lied’ to them came as a bit of a shock. There was a bit of reaction as they referred to my cornstarch addition as ‘goop’… but jealousy is an awful thing!  😉

So how do we avoid being ‘lied to’ in our cookbooks? Well, there are a couple of easy rules to follow:

1) Add some very old cookbooks to your collection that contain more steps and more ingredients… the pointers will be invaluable. Chef Escoffier , at the turn of the 1900’s, was saddened by the trend towards recipe simplification and ease of preparation which has continued to this day. 30 meals in 30 minutes has it’s place, but not when you want to make something special.

theEpicureanCookbook

2) Buy ‘nitch’ cookbooks. These are cookbooks that teach you everything about something specific. I just bought a cookbook produced by a Baking Powder company in 1908… invaluable!

-- no secrets are held back here! --
-- no secrets are held back here! --

3) If a recipe doesn’t work out in your cookbook, set the book aside because the other recipes are probably going to be just as flawed.   Albert Einstein once said,”Insanity (is) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Cookbooks are like people, they have personalities and you have to find those you like.

good hunting!

Roger Freberg