Monthly Archives: February 2009

Yellow Rice

Posted on February 24, 2009 | Leave a comment

Yellow Rice

Thomas Jefferson may not have been around to sample my mom’s yellow rice.  But if he had been, I can only assume he would have found this dish a perfect side for his chicken fricassee. Continue reading →

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Meringues Chantilly

Posted on February 22, 2009 | 9 Comments

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Meringues are a royal treat.  Legend has it that Marie Antoinette loved meringue kisses so much, she often made them herself.  So whether you’re making your meringues for the royal family or just your family, this elegant dessert is bound to please.

Meringues are built around sugar and egg whites.  But despite this simplicity, there are a number of techniques to making the perfect meringues.

1) Look at your weather forecast. Heavy humidity Continue reading →

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Posted in Desserts

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Lady Bird Johnson’s Lemon Bundt Cake

Posted on February 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

Lemon Bundt Cake

In 1934, a day after meeting her, Lyndon Johnson, a 26-year old congressional aide, asked Lady Bird Taylor to marry him.  A few months later, Taylor yielded to Johnson’s pressure, and the two were married.  Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House and a long-time friend to Johnson, later told him that marrying Lady Bird was the wisest decision he ever made.

Indeed, Lady Bird Johnson was a quick study.  She graduated from high school at the age of 15, and the University of Texas at 20, finishing in the top 10 of her class.  She stayed another year at Texas, earning a journalism degree.  In 1943, with her husband (now a Congressman) off at war, Johnson used her inheritance to buy a small Austin radio station.  In a matter of years, she transformed the debt-ridden radio station into a media empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  According to one biographer, Lady Bird was the only first lady to have built and sustained a fortune with her own money.

Her business acumen extended into the legislative arena as well.  When President Kennedy won Texas in the presidential election, Continue reading →

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Posted in Desserts

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Creme Chantilly

Posted on February 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

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Chantilly, France is a small commune located twenty miles North of Paris.  For nearly 200 years, Chantilly belonged to the Princes of Conde, a younger branch of France’s royal family.  During that period, the region served as an example of the ascendancy of French art, architecture, and taste.  And on the matter of taste, no one exemplified French cooking better than Francois Vatel.

After an apprenticeship as a pastry chef, Vatel began working for Nicolas Fouquet at his Chateau in Vaux-le-Vicomte.  Jealous of Fouquet’s displays of wealth and opulence, King Louis XIV jailed Fouquet in 1661.  Six years later, Vatel moved to Chantilly, where he worked for Louis II de Bourbon, the Prince of Conde at the time.  In 1671, King Louis announced he would be visiting the Prince at his Chateau in Chantilly.  The visit required Vatel to prepare three days of meals for six hundred nobles and several thousand other members of the Sun King’s staff.  Vatel was given fifteen days to prepare, and barely slept for most of them.

On the first day of his Majesty’s visit, unexpected guests arrived, leaving two tables without meat, plungingVatel into a deep depression. Continue reading →

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Grilled Garlic Bread

Posted on February 12, 2009 | 3 Comments

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If you were thinking about making my seven-layer spinach lasagna from the other day, grilled garlic bread would make the perfect appetizer. Continue reading →

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Posted in Appetizers

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Seven-Layer Spinach Lasagna

Posted on February 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

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Choosing a recipe is a lot like playing the Kevin Bacon game.

The Kevin Bacon game, or Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon, centers around the small-world principle, or the idea that any two people are linked by a finite number of connections.  With Kevin Bacon, the goal is to link him to any other actor using no more than six intermediary actors.  For instance, Elvis and Kevin Bacon are separated by only one intermediary – Edward Asner, who appeared with Elvis in Change of Habit, and with Bacon in JFK. At last count, over one million actors can be linked to Bacon in fewer than six steps.

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The principle can be applied to any number of disciplines or phenomena -  from linking baseball players in various decades, to demonstrating the thought process in choosing a recipe. Continue reading →

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Posted in Entrees

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Nachos

Posted on February 8, 2009 | Leave a comment

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I am always running late. Always.

I could claim it’s not my fault, but really it is.  At the least, my punctuality problem is rooted not in laziness or lack of ambition, but rather in its excess.  Dinner in an hour?  Surely I have time for an abbreviated workout.  Poker at 7:30?  I can read one more case before I need to leave.  Meeting friends soon?  Let me start another blog entry.

Which is exactly what happened on Superbowl Sunday. Continue reading →

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Marinated Broccoli

Posted on February 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

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Broccoli hasn’t had it easy in this country.

Broccoli was first cultivated in Italy, and came to the United States in the late 19th Century, with the incoming crop of Italian immigrants.  Albert Broccoli, the producer responsible for putting Ian Fleming’s James Bond on the big screen, boasted that his uncle brought the first broccoli seeds to the States in the 1870s.  By the 1920s broccoli  had become a commercial crop, with the D’Arrigo Brothers Company shipping the product to Boston’s  growing Italian population.

But despite its loose association with the debonair spy, broccoli has never been all that popular.

Early in his presidency, Continue reading →

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Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Posted on February 2, 2009 | 1 Comment

Pancakes are universal – nearly every culture has a griddlecake of some kind.  But not only are pancakes universal, they’re classical – literally.  The Ancient Romans collected pancake recipes in the Apicius, their 5th Century cookbook.

From these early origins, the pancake has evolved into a quintessential American comfort food, a part of almost every family’s Sunday brunch.

This recipe Continue reading →

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