Comfort Food

There are many nights, certainly, when you want sophistication and complexity, to cook or to eat. Many of the dishes we have made  and restaurants we have reviewed for this blog are aimed precisely at satisfying this impulse--the layering of diverse yet complimentary flavors, the excitement of an unexpected fusion, and the satisfaction of taking a risk and succeeding. These nights are not all nights, however. On some nights, it is getting late, and dark, and the sunshine of the prior weeks has given way to pounding rain and wind that rips thick branches from the trees, and you find yourself alone, and uncertain, and missing someone. Tonight has been that sort of night for me. If I'd had the means of making them, it would have been the kind of night for a grilled cheese sandwich (perhaps according to Anne's excellent ideas for them), some tomato soup, and a Star Trek marathon. Instead, I decided to wander down through the rain to Hops and Vines.

The Williamstown area has several good places to indulge such an urge in fact. In a coming post I'll review two more of them: the Purple Pub, which opened a couple of years ago (replacing an earlier but unrelated place of the same name that burned down)  at the end of Spring Street, the main commercial strip on campus, and The Forge, a local institution about 25 minutes drive away that offers terrific wings and a truly massive selection of interesting beers. Hops and Vines is of particular interest, however, in that it actually aims to satisfy both of the impulses I specified above at once. It inherited a space (from Mezze, which has migrated about 15 minutes drive away, sadly just out of walking distance) with two dining rooms separated by a passageway, and has built this division into its core identity.  On one side is Vines, a brasserie and wine bar, offering dishes such as beet risotto with goat cheese ($16, or $10 for a small portion), Italian eggplant with white bean puree and house-made dolmades ($16), and pan seared diver scallops with fennel, coriander, and orange ($24), as a wide variety of wine and signature cocktails like the Berkshire Apple Rye, composed of Bullet Rye, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, apple cider, and sparkling wine ($8).

Many of these are items I look forward to trying, but on this night I steered straight for the Hops side, a bar with low, sturdy wood tables, two flat screen tv's, and a popcorn machine. The bar side's menu only has four items (though anything from the Vines side menu can be ordered): wings in three varieties ($10), poutine, sliders (with onions, bacon, and cheddar) and fries, and my choice for the evening, Belgian ale macaroni and cheese with a pretzel crust (all $9). It also boasts a fairly large section of craft beers on draught, including several that I very much enjoy: several IPA's including Dogfish Head's classic, well balanced 60 Minute, Sam Adam's crisp Latitude 48, and an intense, intriguing Black IPA  by Otter Creek, as well as a Belgian Abbey-style ale by NY brewery Ommegange, a classic English bitter called Old Speckled Hen, and a coffee porter by the local Berkshire Brewing Company (all between  $5.50 and $7). In an attempt to watch my spending, however, I decided to try the house lager (a very affordable $3.25). When it arrived, I was pleased to discover a crisp, smooth beer with a well-rounded, lightly woody flavor and hints of a honey-like sweetness. The macaroni and cheese similarly did not disappoint; the pasta was al dente, the sauce hot and flavorful, with a mustardy background  and plenty of contribution from the Belgian ale (though a bit on the thin side), while the well-browned crust packed plenty of aged cheese flavor and made surprisingly good use of the substitution of hard pretzel pieces for the standard breadcrumbs. I ate, drank, munched popcorn and watched the Red Sox rack up a few runs (somewhat uncharacteristically for this season), and when I departed, things did not seem nearly so grey as before.


e-mail us: you can send your comments, recipes, or a personal message to Anne and Colin at: everything-tasty@annedesigns.com

In Praise of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This post is dedicated to my wonderful doctor, James M. Cleary, M.D., PhD. (who probably has far too little time to make grilled cheese sandwiches for his kids.)

There are at least two kinds of homemade sandwiches commonly referred to as grilled cheese.  One (the kind I grew up with) involves melting cheese over bread in the broiler or toaster-oven.  I think of this now as a toasted cheese sandwich; they are wonderful, but we won't be discussing them here at all.  The second kind is the diner classic: two slices of bread, cheese in the middle, fried in a pan or on a griddle until the bread is brown on the outside and the cheese goo-ily melted within.  There's a kind of magic, or alchemy to this—at least for a watching child—since you can't see the cheese melt.  You have to trust that the browning outside corresponds to the melting inside, and that the sandwich will (if you have your heat set right) turn into something more than the sum of its parts.  It's a valuable lesson in the power of the unknowable.

To Make a Basic Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Things you will need:
Frying pan of correct size for the number of sandwiches you wish to make (pan should have a cover)
Butter
Bread: twice as many slices as the number of sandwiches desired
Cheese: usually a mild, medium-hard cheese like American, Swiss, Monterey Jack, etc., 1-2 oz. per sandwich, thinly sliced

To prepare the sandwiches:

Pho Real: Saigon in Williamstown.

I know I've only been doing this a little while, but I've already run into one factor that I've seen be an issue over and over again with reviews of any kind: what is the subject being compared to? If a movie is a schlocky, ludicrous action movie, but executes that genre perfectly, do you give it high marks for precisely hitting it's target, or low ones for not being particularly intellectual or artistic? How do you grade an album by a legendary artist if it is below their usual standards, but would be a great effort coming from someone else? Do you compare a restaurant to all the others of it's "genre" you've been to, the other restaurants in the area, or to some platonic ideal of restaurant-dom, the best of all possible eateries?

This last question was brought home to me when a new Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon, opened here in Williamstown, specifically on Spring Street,the only significant commercial drag near campus. For those who haven't been up to this distant corner of Massachusetts, there had previously been only two sit-down restaurants on Spring Street, one Indian and one Thai (a pub has also since opened, which I have yet to try), so I was really eager to have another option, especially as I happen to be rather fond of Vietnamese food.

Within a week of it opening, the posts about it on our student forum began. Most were not kind, and neither was the review in the campus paper. The general consensus seemed to be that the portions were too small, the prices too high, the menu too small and (what got me onto this topic) the quality was low as compared to places they'd been at home. Several posts had variations on "just go to New York for real Vietnamese food."

Anne's Grandmother's Russian Borscht

 My family borscht recipe ran in the Boston Globe today: handy, since this lets me reprint both the story and recipe here for you. 

One Cook's Best Dish

Adding to the family tradition

Her borscht is her own take on grandmother’s

“I’ve fiddled around with it,’’ says Anne Milton of her recipe for borscht, which she prepares about once a month in season. “As a teen, I went to visit my grandmother in St. Louis. I wanted to learn her recipes — she had the key.’’ (Michele Mcdonald for The Boston Globe)

By Jane Dornbusch Globe Correspondent / February 23, 2011

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CAMBRIDGE — Anne Milton’s borscht traveled a circuitous route to her cozy kitchen: it began in the present-day Ukrainian city of Odessa, went to Sedalia, Mo., then St. Louis, and, finally, to Cambridge. Along the way, it changed a bit, but it remains essentially the meaty, sweet-and-sour, beet-and-cabbage soup that warmed many a Russian winter.

“I’ve fiddled around with it,’’ admits Milton, preparing a batch of borscht on a gleaming 1950s Caloric stove that’s been in place since her great-aunt installed it in this 1892 Victorian. Milton uses agave nectar in place of sugar, and adds chopped fresh dill just before serving — touches her paternal grandmother, a Russian Jew whose family lived in Odessa and emigrated to Missouri in the early 1900s, wouldn’t have recognized.

I've Been To A Marvelous Party

Sherry's Salmon and Scallops in Clementine Glaze

"I went to a marvelous party..." wrote Noel Coward in 1938, speaking of a bohemian bacchanal on the French Riviera.  I could say the same, with equal conviction, in 2011; last Saturday night, I went to my own birthday party, in my own home: didn't have to lift a finger to have the most delicious, intriguing meal, and an utterly fabulous time! (Click here to see more photos of the event.)

Izabel and Sherry Prep for Dinner

My friend Sherry Moore (click here for Sherry's bio) who, as I've often said, is an extraordinary human being in many, many ways, threw a party for me the like of which has not been known before—at least not in this neck of the woods.  She planned for weeks, she invited the guests, she arranged flowers and set a gorgeous table—the last with the invaluable assistance of our friend and household angel, Izabel B.  On the day, Sherry and Izabel cooked and served what Sherry modestly described as a 'tapas style dinner:' a series of mini-courses each more elegant and inviting than the last.

Sonoran Hot Dogs -something *positive* from my home town

Hot Dog Sonoran-style

Hey all,

I know it's been too long since I've posted--life has been overwhelming, but this is something I aim to change. Anne's posts are, of course, wonderful--but this is a group blog and from here on out I intend to keep it that way.

Anyhow, as most of you know I'm from Tucson. Obviously, right now that's a painful word--for few more so than me; I worked for Gabby Giffords for three months in 2008, and I can safely say that she is among the best human beings I have ever met. Everyone who meets her, regardless of their politics, will come away talking about what an incredibly kind and understanding person she is. I feel very close to her, and I hope you will join me in sending your prayers and positive thoughts her way.

In this moment though, I'm trying to remind myself that Tucson is not solely a city of doom; that I come from a place I long to return to on these long cold Berkshire nights. It's far from perfect, but I know that Gabby is proud to represent us, and that she would tell you herself that it's a city full of kind and talented people, vibrant art, terrific music and--the subject of this blog--great food.

Now, the first association you are likely to make is with Mexican food, and rightly so--from gourmet, experimental restaurants like Cafe Poca Cosa to the dozens of terrific hole-in-the wall taquerias that dot the south side, we certainly do very well in the Mexican food department. Yet, if I'm to be completely honest, it would be hard to say that Tucson is indisputably the American #1 at any particular aspect of Mexican food; we've got stellar Sonoran and Michoacan style places, but they are likely equaled by others in New Mexico, and while there are some delicious exceptions (like terrific local Mexican seafood chain Mariscos Chihuahua), our coverage of non-northern Mexican styles could certainly be better. Yet there is one area of Mexican (or, at least, Mexican-tinged) cuisine where Tucson stands indisputably supreme, offering a rendition unsurpassed anywhere in this country if not on Earth: the Sonoran-Style Hot Dog.

"There never was such a goose..."

"There never was such a goose..."*

Braised Christmas Goose

What a marvelous Christmas dinner we had last night!  Goose: braised, succulent and juicy, with homemade sausage and chestnut stuffing—by which I mean that the sausage itself was homemade, rich with veal, pork, port wine and sundry other delicacies; red cabbage stewed for hours in wine with yet more chestnuts;

Cabbage Braised with Red Wine and Chestnuts

crisp broccoli to offset all the luxurious fat; and wonderful, deeply-flavored goose gravy with which to bathe the rest...it's enough to make a person wax Dickensian just thinking about it!

BLESSING OF THE STEW POT

This poem was sent to me some time ago by my friend Joan.  I think it is particularly apt at Thanksgiving, because in the midst of the merrymaking, we need to remember the sacred bond that links us: food, and cooks, and eaters, all part of something much bigger than ourselves.

BLESSING OF THE STEW POT

Cheaper and Better Turkey Sandwiches...a Success Story

Cheaper and Better Turkey Sandwiches

...a Success Story

I have to give a big round of applause to my friend Tamara, because recently, she made a great leap forward for all lunch-eating-kind.  This is exactly the kind of cooking busy people (and aren't we all?) can do to make life so much better for themselves.  As Tamara writes on her facebook page:

"Several years ago, someone mentioned to me that you can save money on lunches by cooking your own turkey to put in sandwiches. Since we are trying to eat better and save money, and I got sticker shock the last time I bought high quality deli meat, I thought I would try it. It came out great - I think this will become a regular thing. Even though the time from start to finish was a few hours, it doesn't require that much babysitting during the process, so you can do it while you are accomplishing other important things around the house, like catching up on Grey's Anatomy.

The Famous Grazing Menu Dinner Party

The Famous Grazing Menu Dinner Party

(a foodie fable)

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, we made a fabulous dinner. 

(Truth to tell, it wasn't far away at all: it was in Cambridge.  And it wasn't all that long ago, either, although it was before Labor Day, which feels like ancient history by now.)  Anyway, in that distant epoch, Colin and his lovely girlfriend, Eden, came to visit Anne and Ken in Cambridge,
and were joined there by Colin's mother, Su.  Both of us—Colin and Anne, that is—wanted to throw a party to honor Sherry, Anne's local best bud who helped Colin out of a jam last spring, inviting Sherry's partner, Joan, as the seventh guest. 
Talking this over weeks in advance, Colin had suggested a grazing menu: the kind of dinner made up of lots of smaller dishes, served casually and without the traditional sequence of courses.

Winning Ways With Dandelion Greens

Winning Ways With Dandelion Greens

We're pretty omnivorous, for the most part, but even we must confess to being bested by an ingredient now and then.  Such is the case with dandelion greens: we've tried steaming, sautéing, soaking, blanching, brining, sweetening with various concoctions, even combining them with bacon fat, but nothing seems to mitigate the overwhelming bitterness.  We're still open to new ideas—please send us your suggestions, if you have any.
Meanwhile, the best notion we've seen yet comes from our friend Sherry, who shares our Boston Organics subscription, and is also a veteran of the dandelion green wars.  She grew this accidental pumpkin, see—a volunteer descended from last Halloween's doorstep decorations—and after watching over it all summer, and rescuing it from the squirrels at the last possible moment, she decided to go sculptural on it.  Here's the quintessential Spirit of Fall, mane of dandelion greens waving proudly, photographed on a bed of leaves in the pumpkin's birthplace, right next to Sherry's front door.
Despite his strange origins, we think this jack-o-lion harbors no bitterness.


e-mail us: you can send your comments, recipes, or a personal message to Anne and Colin at: everything-tasty@annedesigns.com

Poll Results: Everyone's Favorite Meals to Eat Out

News Flash: our reader poll is now closed, and the results are in: 85% of Everything Tasty fans prefer going out to dinner over other meals; 15% chose brunch as their favorite eat-out meal.  No one picked breakfast or lunch.  I wonder why: are lunch and breakfast more utilitarian meals?  Is there less variety among the menu choices?  Let us know what you think.  And what could restaurants do to rescue breakfast and lunch from oblivion?

e-mail us: you can send your comments, recipes, or a personal message to Anne and Colin at: everything-tasty@annedesigns.com

The Asian Sandwich Deli: a food poem.

Hey all--sorry for the delay in posts from me, school has been very hectic. Anne and I should have our first combined post--a big blog on the dinner party we threw last month--but in the mean time, I thought I'd put up a poem of mine. It's about food--specifically, a now-departed restaurant in Tucson that I loved--but it's also one of the most emotional and, I think, one of the better pieces I've written. Hope you enjoy.

The Asian Sandwich Deli
I.
“Hole in the wall” is an understatement.
It’s just a small chunk of an ugly strip mall on Speedway Boulevard,
and a rough midpoint between two extremes called home.

I spent years going by it;
driven from my father’s to my mother’s, passed back and forth
like a book they were taking turns reading.
We never stopped for sandwiches.

Improving on a Tucson Original

So, on lunch break with my mother a few weeks back, we went to the Time Market. For those of you who haven’t been, it’s a real Tucson institution and absolutely essential if you visit. For a place as small as it is, it’s got an excellent variety of cheese, chocolate, artisanal cooking oils and the like, an awesome selection of beverages, both alcoholic and soft (Virgil’s Root Beer—mmm), more kinds of interesting chips than you could shake a stick at, as well as some excellent bread they bring in from a local bakery, and some of the best tortillas in town (though they go very quickly). Besides all this, they’ve got a brick oven that turns out great (and cheap) pizza, and the subject of the rest of today’s column—a deli counter with a large and unique selection of sandwiches.

When I’ve gone to lunch there by myself, I’ve mainly gotten the pizza; when I have had sandwiches there, it’s mostly been in the company of my stepmother, who tends to complain when I order something weird, so to placate her I’ve stuck for the most part to the more conventional offerings—tuna salad etc.—which were unfailingly quite good. But each time I’ve gone in, my eye has strayed to one fascinating item: the Green Gringo. This hot sandwich, a mad-scientist melding of American and Mexican tradition, advertises shredded chicken and a green corn tamale on sourdough bread, along with salsa, green olives, and cheddar cheese. And this time, I was going to have it.

We ordered, I grabbed a Mexican grapefruit soda from the cooler, and soon the sandwich arrived. The first thing I noticed was that it had a soft, buttery looking roll instead of the sourdough—so much the better really. I took a picture, picked up the sandwich, took a bite and…

Ogunquit Restaurants: Favorites Featuring The Lobster Shack

I've just returned from a week's vacation in Ogunquit, ME, the idyllic seaside town where I go every year to sample as much lobster-centric New England cuisine as possible while still fitting into my tankini.  

Cove Café

Yes, there are pristine beaches, lush flower gardens, and breathtaking cliffside views to enjoy in Ogunquit too; visit my photo scrapbook to see pictures if you like. But this is a food blog: let's talk tasty.

Irish Benedict at Amore Breakfast

Ogunquit is a breakfast kind of place.

  Wild blueberry pancakes at—where else—Wild Blueberry Café and Bistro shouldn't be missed, likewise all the Benedicts (or pretty much anything else) at Amore Breakfast,

now at 309 Shore Road.  Another favorite is the simple, friendly 

Cove Café, where everything from crab cakes to croissants is homemade, locally-sourced, and delicious. 

Houston Food Review

So if you recall, when I wrote my last blog a ways back I was in Houston visiting my girlfriend Eden. I had a wonderful time, and it was very hard to say goodbye to her at the airport—she’s really quite incredible. Since I got back I’ve been completely absorbed in the stress of getting the reading of my new play put together, but, with that finished (it went pretty well I think), I can finally return my attention to the blog—and I’ll start with a Houston food review.

Boston Organics Challenge, Part II: Re-Imagined Summer Menu

Boston Organics Challenge, Part II

Re-Imagined Summer Menu

Cream of Summer Tomato Soup recipe

Spiced Cheddar and Onion Spread recipe

Refrigerator Pickled Dilly Beans recipe 

As you can see from the list at the end of this post, our latest Boston Organics box held a bounty of local summer produce.  Filled with nostalgia at the sight of it, I craved a New England farm-stand supper like the ones we often had in my youth: ripe tomatoes, snappy green beans, and fresh, just-picked corn on the cob, with nothing but a little salt and butter, and homemade crusty bread to sop up the juices.  Ah, but that was then.  This is now: my husband doesn’t share my mania for vegetables, and, in truth, we both could use a better-balanced dinner than the ones that beckon from my memories.

A Boston Organics Challenge

I want to recommend—and generally celebrate—a great local business, which is also one of my favorite food sources: Boston Organics http://www.bostonorganics.com.  This wonderful company works hard to source organic produce from an array of farms throughout the year, using as much locally grown produce as they can, and then...get this...they deliver the produce to your door!  Click here to see if you're in their delivery area.

Hello from Colin

Hey everybody,

So obviously I'm getting in a little late here--I've been reading Anne's delicious looking posts with great enthusiasm (and can't wait to get back in the kitchen with her), but I haven't had good enough internet access here in Houston to post until now.

So, anyhow, in the (probably unlikely) event that anyone reading this doesn't know me too well, I'm Colin, Anne's godson (she and my mom have been best friends since they were 8). I'm 20 years old, I was born in Boston but grew up in Tucson, AZ, and go to Williams College, and I love food. I started cooking with Anne when I was a little kid, and it's been a tradition ever since --though she can testify that my ideas have improved a tad since then (RIP Ice Pie). My great culinary love is inventing new recipes, combinations of flavors that I think will work well together--and as often as not, I'll try them out first when I visit Boston. My culinary heroes are Mark Bittman and Alton Brown, and I'll often read/watch them for ideas. At any rate, you'll see a lot of recipe ideas from me, with as many of them tried out as I can muster when I'm living most of the year in a college dorm. In addition, you'll see restaurant reviews, and a fair number of random musings about food.

The Corn Pancakes Experiment

Well the corn pancakes came out pretty good.  My fresh corn wasn't the best: it was that Georgia stuff we've been getting lately, and I thought the kernels were a little starchy and tough; the pancakes would be greatly improved by using sweet, just-picked corn.  But my husband (Mr. Anonymous from the comments) said they were very good and didn't notice anything amiss about the corn.