October, In Search Of
Including:
~Two recipes of utmost deliciousness
~Two restaurant recommendations
~An account of our amazing visit to Burlington & Shelburne, Vermont
Dad's French Onion Soup
I would just like to say that my Dad is an inspiration to me, both personally and in the kitchen. I won't say that I was at his hip as a wee child, but he always turns a hopeful eye to my opinion after he's turned out yet another incredible meal. I guess you could say that I love the foods that I love because I was determined to "be like Dad" in the kitchen. It started in college with my failed attempts at sticky buns. I thought I had to learn how to do that one thing, in order to be a grown-up, in order to have any kind of holiday at all. It means so much to me every time I master a recipe, especially one that's been in the family for a while. Some recipes appear every year at their appointed times while some pop up after years of neglect. This one is next on my list to learn. They say that the fifth taste is Umami (Deliciousness). Trust me, you'll taste it right away.
There are actually two different versions of this recipe, so I'll post both. I suggest heating up some fontina cheese over a slice of bread in a toaster oven and then plopping it on the top right before you go to eat. And technique is key here, as Dad is always quick to remind me.
Onion Soup (Regular)
~1 very large (1 lb) white onion, sliced thin
~2 Cups dry white wine (Macon-Villages brand, if possible)
~2 Tb unsalted butter
~6 Cups unsalted chicken stock (homemade is the best way to get this)
~6 slices crusty baugette
~2 Cups grated Gruyere cheese
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Combine onion, wine and butter in an oven-proof pan and braise, uncovered until the onion is very soft and most of the liquid is absorbed.
3. Bring stock to a simmer.
4. Distribute onions to six bowls, add stock, bread & cheese in that order and broil.
5. Serve!
From: Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells, Workman Publishing Inc. NY. NY.
Onion Soup - Gratinee Lyonaise
~2.5 Quarts broth (mix of chicken and beef)
~Twig of thyme
~2 bay leaves
~3 lbs of yellow onions peeled and thinly sliced
~3 Tb butter
~2 Tb vegtable/olive oil
~Salt
~1 tsp sugar
~4 Tb flour
~2 Cups dry white wine
~French bread
~Cheese: Swiss, Gruyere, or Fontina
Heat broth, add thyme and bay leaves. Cook slices of onions in butter and oil in a large covered skillet until soft and golden. Sprinkle with 2 tsp of salt, the sugar and flour, and cook 5 minutes more, uncovered on medium. Stir until onions and flour are brown. pour wine into onions, stiring, pour into broth and simmer 30 minutes. Taste and correct any seasonings.
Recipe from "The French Family Feast" by Mireille Johnston, 1988, Simon & Schuster.
Puree of Butternut Squash with Cranberries and Brown Sugar
Most winter squashes need to be peeled and cooked, and then cooked one more time into the recipe you intend to make. Here's a little cooking lessons about winter squashes and pumpkins.
~1 medium (1.5 lb) butternut squash, pumpkin, or banana squash
~1 Cup fresh cranberries
~2 Cups brown sugar
~A dash of nutmeg
~2 Cups apple cider
Take the medium-sized squash, cut it in half, scrape out the seeds, peel it, and cut it into 2-inch-sized cubes. Put the squash into a saucepan with the fresh cranberries, brown sugar, and cider. Season with a little salt and pepper, and a dash of the nutmeg. very simple. Bring the mixture to a boil, and immediately turn to low ans simmer, stirring every 10-15 minutes to keep it from sticking. Let it cook on that low heat for 30-45 minutes, until the cranberries have burst and the squash is soft to a knife. Take it off the stove and mash it like mashed potatoes. Put it all into a buttered baking dish. Sprinkle with brown sugar and shaved cold butter, and bake at 400 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.
This is a "how to do it" recipe. You can use the same principle with parsnips and cranberries, carrots and cranberries, or beets and cranberries.
From: "Cooking in the Shaker Spirit", ie, the best cookbook I've ever bought.
Capitol Grounds
While moseying through Montpelier, VT the other weekend Emmy and I found ourselves cruising for a light dinner before getting back on the road to Burlington. We picked up coffees at the Capitol Grounds and split a sandwhich called the Monsuier Croquet. I have never eaten a better sandwhich. Egg, pancetta, gruyere cheese (cheese of some type, anyway), on a warmed croissant. Some kind of heaven.
Lucca's
So, back when I was just a wee writer attending Keene State College I looking longingly through the windows of Lucca's, too poor to even think about stepping in the doors. Well, I had (at that point) the perfect sandwhich at their deli sometime in my Junior year. During Pumpkinfest this year (a giant jack-o-lantern festival) Emmy and I strolled into town with empty tummies. Mom and Dad had eaten at Lucca's a couple months ago and highly reccomended it to me. Since I spent most of my college days filling up on cafeteria pasta and subs at Athens', I heartily agreed to return to the Italian restaurant.
There was a special menu just for Pumpkinfest, which was just as well considering the crowd. I had salmon on a bed of some tiny wee pasta and Emmy had orichette pasta with a butternut squash cream sauce. I mean, the food was perfectly proportioned, the service was great, the decor was fantastic, and if any place in the whole state has Umami, my money's on this place. Well done, Lucca, we'll be back.
There and Back Again
Beauty can strike at any time, taking our breath away, crystalizing a moment in time.
The grey clouds rolled heavy and threatening across the Shelburne plain. I knelt on that long white road, grey dust slicking my tires and the knees of my jeans. Baby hummed, quietly for once, behind me as if even she couldn't disturbe the peace of that place. Red-winged blackbirds screamed in the dry rushes and a hidden brook babbled. The road was wet and cold and a winter wind picked at the soft fleece of my coat. There was silence on the land and the road sign proclaiming this to be Simmons Drive hung askew. I looked around. Intersections familiar and not reared suddenly from the depths of memory. I searched through the skeleton trees for a swing I barely remember using. With my gloves pulled off I turned the air in my hand, and even that felt almost right.
The smell, the land, the sky, and the shrouded horizon (where I knew Camel's Hump was lurking) all consolidated into focus. A bare hillside in winter, strung with candles in paper bags. Pulling cattails under a singing summer sun. The blue-black night when we watched the full moon walk the ridge of the Hump and finally, tentatively, soar up and up, as if in a huge, white hot-air balloon. I have never seen the moon so big as it was on that night. Nana's land, and the house that is not her house, stands almost untouched at the top of the hill. I choose three smooth white stones and rush back to the warmth of the car. My fingers are stained with white clay.
The penninsula is ahead of us. We crawl down the road to Shelburne Farms, quiet now in its off-season. Trees soar overhead, tall and lonely, like giants. And then, like the giant's house, the barnyard emerges from the hillside. A horseshoe-shaped barn with all the height, pomp and circumstance of a catholic church rises to greet us. We are in awe of its size. I am dwarfed, as if I were suddenly in Spain again, looking up at the awesome, larger-than-life tomb of Christopher Columbus. We circle the closed barnyard in silence, pointing, as if the lack of speech somehow captures the holiness of this place.
A further cruise, toward the inn and carriage house, brings us to one of the most western locales in Vermont. A hard application of the brakes later and we are alone in this vast swath of green hills populated only by sheep and deer. The silence is immense. The wind is a suggestion of winter. But the view; I swear I have found heaven, if it were to exist, it would be here.
While the sky was grey and mopey, on the other side of Lake Champlain, in New York, the Berkshire Mountains rise sharply from the shoreline, speckled with brilliant color and zebra-striped sunlight. The northern horizon literaly continues to the curve of the earth, disappearing in a viscous, silver line, beyond which lies Canada and the St Lawerence River. Cradled by green fields at my back, an enormous lake at my front, a sky so huge it seems to swallow and yet give back everything, and what is clearly Aslan's Country beyond the water, I know I have found, perhaps, the most awesome place on earth.
Much love to you all. I will write again at the beginning of December!
xoxoxo
Kim & Emmy
