Category Archives: Food

Suzie said she lived on these Danish sandwiches during her junior year abroad. They are made of a sturdy base of rugbrod, a layer of creme fraiche, a sprinkling of capers (I used the kind stored in salt), then topped by a few folds of ham and some fresh dill. Sometimes the simplest things are the most delicious. 

That goes for blog posts too.

Despite being glamorized by Mame Dennis and her nephew Patrick in ‘Auntie Mame‘ – (as “fishberry jam” – it’s salty kind of but he liked it) – caviar never held much allure for me. Part of me also suspected I might enjoy it a bit too much, given my penchant for briny things – olives and capers and all things fishy. For those slightly contradictory reasons, I’ve avoided caviar all these years, happily not spending the extra money or indulging in such decadence. 

That changed during our recent homage to ‘Babette’s Feast’ in which ‘Blinis Demidoff’ formed the opening salvo. Suzie put the caviar on sparingly for all the guests, so I was left with an almost-full jar at the end of the evening – which meant I could act a total fishery jam glutton and go to town the next day. The sea-like brilliance that was merely hinted at with that first trial, was magnified and made center-stage on a bed of creme fraiche, and I was instantly a caviar convert. 

Several weeks ago Suzie Ko and I slipped quietly into the 76 Diner, where we set up shop at a table hidden near the back, ordered some diner fare, and proceeded to plot out a seven-course meal inspired by the movie ‘Babette’s Feast’. Suzie has loved the movie since her childhood; I’ve avoided it for forty years, assuming it was some soft-porn piece more aligned with Suzie’s peccadilloes than mine. When it showed up on television a month ago I decided to give it a shot, and despite the Danish language (you try saying ‘rugbrød’ the correct way) I fell in love with it too. Happily, or unhappily depending upon why you’re here, the movie has less to do with porn and more to do with a feast prepared by a woman named Babette. 

“I have been with you every day of my life. You know, do you not, that is has been so? And, I shall be with you every day that is left to me. Every evening I shall sit down, if not in flesh, which means nothing, in spirit, which is all, to dine with you, just like tonight. For tonight I have learned that in this world anything is possible.” – Isak Dinesen, ‘Babette’s Feast’

We both agreed to forego an exact imitation of the fancy French dishes that Babette prepares (it was likely that nobody in our families would take kindly to eating turtles or quail) so we settled on a seven-course menu that provided enough to approximate Babette’s wondrous work while giving us something within reach of our culinary abilities. 

“Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude.” – Isak Dinesen, ‘Babette’s Feast’

After picking Suzie up, we made a stop at the market to get the last-minute items for the opening salvo of the meal. I’d already prepared the almond dessert, curry dish, and a couple of batches of the Danish rye bread, Suzie had done most of the sorbet (with assistance from Pat and Milo), and Mom was bringing the show-stopping centerpiece of Cornish game hens. We just had to make the potato leek soup, blinis, and risotto.

“Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!”~ Isak Dinesen, ‘Babette’s Feast’

For the opening blini dish, the batter struggled in its race against time (we may have also forgot to do this part first), but it puffed up just enough to make the gray buckwheat carriage for the crème fraîche and caviar – and unfortunately I am now hooked on the exorbitant combination (another post celebrating that is on the way, courtesy of breakfast the next day). 

The potato and leek soup came together more easily, thanks to a leek-top broth and immersion blender. Finally, Suzie’s recipe for an Instapot risotto defied the typically-sweat-inducing process of a proper risotto and resulted in the creamy and dreamy bed on which the Cornish game hens would nest. 

Mom and Milo helped with the dish-turnover, and Andy helped with the dishwasher-loading, and by the time the evening came to a close, our appetites for comfort and culinary decency had been satiated. Suzette’s Feast had been a success.

“Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.” –  Isak Dinesen, ‘Babette’s Feast’

In service of our homage to ‘Babette’s Feast’ – happily updated as ‘Suzette’s Feast‘ for our silly intents and purposes – I tried my hand at this simplified version of Danish rye bread (Rugbrød) – thank you Kristi – love the floral head wreath! Given my penchant for the occasional kitchen mishap, and Mercury being in retrograde, I was wise enough to do a test batch before baking the actual version I’ll be serving at dinner tomorrow. That proved fortuitous, as I made a fatal error in one of the ingredients.

If you look closely, or at the shot below, you’ll see some very prominent pumpkin seeds. The bag said pumpkin seeds, and the recipe called for pumpkins seeds, and I’ve eaten this sort of pumpkin seed (salted) after Halloween, but I didn’t realize, and didn’t think through, that I needed ‘hulled’ pumpkins seeds – the green meat within the pale shells. 

The test version came out well side from this – heavy and dense and rustic with rye. I didn’t have a pullman lidded bread pan, so I just encased the regular bread pan with foil and topped it with a heavy cookie sheet for the first part of the being process. Once cooled and set, I sliced it up with a sharp serrated knife and piled on some toppings for a Danish open faced sandwich that Suzie had learned to love in Denmark when she was an exchange student there several decades ago. Perhaps this will bring it all back tomorrow…

(Proper seed types seen below.) 

This Tom Yum soup is the ideal antidote for these frigid days – warm to the taste, both from the spice and temperature – and packed with the traditional flavors of Thailand. I’ve made a few variations and deviations based on what was in the house, but it’s a soup that bends beautifully beneath such changes. Instead of Thai chiles, I used a habanero. Instead of galangal I used ginger. Miraculously, we had the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves in the freezer from a previous summer. Andy had a pound of shrimp on hand from a batch we forgot to put out for a recent family dinner. I picked up some mushrooms after work, and used some remaining tomatoes and a new bottle of fish sauce to round it all out. It was just the slightest bit too biting when I first sampled it, so I added some coconut milk to temper it – not too much… these are icy days and nights. 

Stay warm, friends.

Winter… and we’re very much in it. Lunch-time scrambles to nearby food places prove a dire battle against icy winds ever since our office building cafe went out of business. A Tibetan blanket of soft wool makes for a heavy and oversized scarf; wrapped around my head and neck, it provides a portable cocoon that allows for a cozy walk. 

The soup and stew days are upon us, so I made this chicken soup for a friend whose family has been stricken with the nasty cold/flu thing that is going around. Simmering chicken and vegetables and a few bay leaves fills the house with the scent of comfort and coziness, turning plain water into a rich stock in just a few hours of patient heat. Making soup is like making tea – a ritual tailor-made for winter, for rumination, for survival. 

Yes, you.

And shame on everyone who knew about the glory that is the chocolate orange and just sat on that knowledge without so much as whispering its magic and wonder to me. (Not to be confused with the chocolate starfish or a starfruit.)

This is Terry’s Chocolate Orange, and apparently much of the world was aware of its awesomeness and yet no one bothered to introduce it to me until Andy gave me one for Christmas. At first I assumed it was some lovely trifle of candy, which I piled in with the rest of the treats I received.

Then I tried it.

Is this the best chocolate I have ever tasted? 

Quite possibly. At the very least, it was a revelation.

The instructions to ‘Tap and Unwrap’ are no joke – you do need to give this a fun tap, and not the shy kind, at which point it will open up its inner orange form and fall into bite-size slices easier than a real orange would. Such whimsy! I was instantly obsessed, but Andy says they only come out around the holidays, and of course we are no longer in the holiday times, so shame on all of you who kept this secret all these years. 

If you happen to find any hanging around on clearance, you know where to send them. 

New Year’s Eve is one of those weird quasi-holidays that sometimes gets us rallied and sometimes finds us sleeping through the whole thing. This year we invited Suzie’s family over, as has become somewhat of an occasional tradition, for an eclectic meal of whatever comfort food is on hand. Years past we tried to get a fondue ritual together – and for several gatherings I got out Suzie’s fondue set (for some reason she wasn’t using the one gifted to her years ago) and made a traditional cheese fondue – with the garlic rub, the kirsch, the gruyere and the cubed bread and green apples for dipping. 

This year I said fuck it – fondue is such a beast to clean (or so Andy told me, repeatedly) especially when you try to keep it warm with a sterno or tea light that just solidified a burnt circle of soot onto the bottom of the fancy fondue pot – whoopsie daisy as I used to say. Then I saw a cup of fondue at Trader Joe’s – La Fondue – and bought it as a joke. Of course I forgot to heat it up on NYE when everyone was here, but I found it this week and used the sourdough bread that Milo had made as a vehicle to test it out. 

Y’all, Traders Joe’s doesn’t dick around with this fondue. Somehow they got it all right – not sure there is any kirsch in this but damn it is decent – just as good as any fiasco I might have conjured, minus all the mess.