Panettone! Tall, crisp Milanese brioches, studded with homemade glazed chestnuts, golden raisins and citrus peel. Fragrant, tender and with a flavor you can only get by using 100% natural leavening. Perhaps the best thing I've ever baked. I'd like to share some photos and thoughts on the project.
The joys of making your own sauerkraut, and a couple of variations on choucroute garni. This is great Winter food, whether paired with traditional pork garnishes, or smoked turkey (above).
For a crisp Fall morning, here is a breakfast cake featuring ingredients that might be left over from the feast! Squash, pecans and currants enrich this brown-sugar praline-topped cake. Nibble this while tidying up.
Here's another Grange Favorite for Fall: Maple Bars with oats and walnuts. Topped with my Maple Fudge Icing, they are just what you need after stacking firewood.
For this Thanksgiving, here's a new take on pumpkin: Pumpkin Mousse Cake. Pumpkin-enriched sponge cake with a hint of Fiori di Sicilia surrounds an ethereal Pumpkin Chiboust Cream center. Vermont maple syrup flavors the glaze.
Here is a Vermont version of a classic: tender olive oil crust covered with lots of caramelized onions, Niçoise olives, buttercup squash, romano and goat cheeses. Tastes like Fall.
Tarte Tatin meets Upside-down cake, for breakfast! Scrumptious individual cinnamon coffee cakes, topped with caramelized apples. Truly, this is one of the best things I have ever baked, and it was Easy.
Make it today. Please.
Tonight, I opened up a wheel of my one-year clothbound cheddar, and I thought you might like to see it. Becoming a proficient cheesemaker has been great fun, and one of the most rewarding things I've done since moving to Vermont. Maybe I can get you interested in cheesemaking!
Three cheeses combine to flavor and melt over fresh pesto and ham, in a tender calzone crust. A simple but absolutely delicious dish that goes together in about an hour.
This is an easy, hearty and delicious stew for Fall. Chunks of lamb are simmered with chocolate stout, tomatoes, corn and quinoa for an unusual and warming dish.
On a beautiful Fall day, we visited the 3rd annual Vermont Life Wine and Harvest Festival. Here are some pictures and impressions of the day and this very enjoyable event, which you might want to visit next year!
Thin savory buckwheat crepes, filled with homemade Gruyere, Vermont ham and fresh scallions from the garden. Definitely one of the best things I brought back from Quebec.
These little cakes combine the deep caramelized crunch of their shell with a light, custardy interior, flavored with Vermont maple liqueur. Dusted with powdered sugar, they're heaven.
This week, I visited three fromageries while travelling the back roads between Quebec City and Montreal. Although the cities are fascinating, their hotels luxurious, and their restaurants marvelous, in many ways this was the highlight of the trip. Quebec has some great cheesemakers, and is really moving forward with new and renewed facilities and government support of the industry. We found some terrific cheeses out in the country that I'd like to tell you about.
This chowder makes a quick and delicious summer dinner. It's full of fresh summer vegetables, crab, herbs from the garden and a bit of Pernod to round out the flavor.
I have a beautiful daughter, Charlotte, who is an opera singer. Last year, she spent a lot of time singing in Italy, and this year she went back to actually enjoy the country. She has written to me about her visit to a Pecorino cheesemaker in Puglia.
Yesterday, we attended the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, held at the coach house of Shelburne Farms, on the shores of Lake Champlain. I can't imagine a more delightful way to spend Sunday, than to meet 50 fascinating cheesemakers, sample countless wonderful cheeses, sip a glass of Vermont wine or microbrew, taste an array of creative local food products, and listen to the remarkable Steve Jenkins lead a panel discussion. Come with me, and I'll show you some of the highlights.
Tomorrow is the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, and so it's time to pack the picnic basket. I'll be bringing along some cheese, of course. Here are another couple of packables to consider: Cheddar-Sausage Calzone and Peach Galette.
Some of the best things are the most simple. In this case, local Vermont boneless breast of quail is quickly charcoal grilled, then mopped with pomegranate-maple glaze. It's a perfect combination that doesn't need any additional enhancement.
Idaho potatoes grilled in parchment, with chanterelles, fresh thyme and Spanish smoked paprika. This is a subtle, smoky, delicious dish you can quickly produce on the grill.
This savory flan is packed with the flavor of spring peas, fresh from the garden. Quick and easy to make, it's perfect as a first course, or paired with a salad as a light lunch.
Left the city and moved to Vermont fifteen years ago.
I'm learning the lessons that Vermont has to offer: self-reliance, patience, and flexibility. As a technologist, writer, photographer, cheesemaker, baker and serious cook, living in Vermont allows me to use the things I've learned: cooking and baking from Madeleine Kamman, King Arthur Flour and others, Cheesemaking from Jim Wallace, Ivan Larcher in Auvergne, and Academie Mons in Lyon. I'm also interested in gardening from my years on the North Shore, and am now growing upwards of a thousand hybrid daylilies.. I've paid my dues and am living in paradise. Till the power goes out.