Motivation: We're all stuck indoors these days. For us, this means a chance to be more ambitious about what we eat which, in turn, means getting to cook out of those cookbooks which have been too-long ignored. We're particularly anxious to explore James Peterson's Glorious French Food, Joanne Chang's Meyers & Chang At Home, and Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table. We're also rooting through old standbys like David Rosengarden's It's All American Food and Jean-George's The Asian Flavors of Jean-George.
“So much delicious food, so little time.”
Friday, June 12
Lunch: With a beautiful head of frisée on hand, we did the obvious! It always reminds us of being in Lyons!
Dinner: I came across an interesting Macedonian stew of squid and octopus in tomato sauce and Deb was able to get both at the Star! We settled for just the squid. It was fine but not memorable.
Saturday, June 13
Lunch: Deb decided to use the procedure for the fabulous Tomato Soup (see Recipes above) to make beet soup. It was a great success, especially with the crème fraîche.
Dinner: The current Cook's Illustrated has a piece on Smashed Burgers, something I've never had but which sounded good with its thoroughly crisped patties. We should have used American cheese (as recommended) but of course we didn't have any! Note the slice of sweet onion peeking out on the lower left!
Sunday, June 14
Lunch: Instead of a real lunch, Deb used the fresh cherries left over from the cherry tart for a very successful cherry clafoutis.
Dinner: We decided that it was time for Tomasz to learn about New England seafood: clam chowder and Maine lobster rolls. The clam chowder was an excellent store-bought (at Russo's) version but the lobster rolls were from stratch.
Monday, June 15
Lunch: We'd bought a very fine head of frisée at Russo's last Wednesday and there was just enough for another frisée au lardon (this time I remembered the croutons!).
Dinner: Another week, another duck, and therefore more magret!
Tuesday, June 16
Lunch: We had two servings of Deb's terrific beet soup left over for lunch.
Dinner: We finally come to the paired-down Tournedos Rossi (still no black truffles!). But we did have a wonderful package of d'Artagnan foie gras from the Fortés. So, sous viding the filet mignon again at 129° we paired it with the seared foie gras and the terrific potato cake from Paul Bertoli (which we got cooked properly this time).
We bicycled to the Science Center Farmer's Market at noon to be on hand for the first native strawberries. Since we haven't been around for many years at this time of year, it was a real treat to resurrect Beth Anderson's great shortcake recipe.
Wednesday, June 17
Lunch: We really like the dried Italian tortellini we discovered at Cardullo's (much cheaper online) so we defrosted more brodo.
Dinner: We were going to go to Larry Tribe's for our typical take-out sushi meal but the best sushi shop in Brookline was closed so we said we'd bring the food. Vichyssoise (from the big batch of leek-and-potato soup) to start.
And fusilli with walnut sauce. Elizabeth provided some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory (something known to me only by reputation; it was a fine dense version.)
Thursday, June 18
Not much of a menu blog day! For lunch we finished up: the tortellini in brodo, the clam chowder, and the squid in tomato sauce. At dinnertime, we were not hungry (although we were very tired having done our longest bicycle ride yet to the B-school and back). After thinking perhaps some fried cheese would hit the spot we finally settled on: nothing!