Flavors 518

Its hard to believe, I have been having salad bar parties for five years! Here's the link back to the post of the first one . You can see my punch was a bit more attractive for that party. The idea is everyone brings an ingredient to add to the salad bar, and then everyone can go down the line and even make several very different salads. It ends up feeling interactive and community building, I think. This is a tradition I've been really happy to keep going because I feel like it was a really great idea to start off with. It doesn't require much cooking which is great for summer months, sometimes people have extra produce in the summer from their gardens or CSA memberships, and its really healthy and refreshing so it just feels perfect for this time of year. I thought I'd break it down how this year went. Alright, so first on this punch... uh what can I say, everyone thought it was like a science experiment. Started out with Joy the Baker's Lavender Lemonade ...

A couple years ago I read Rules of Civility by Amor Towles over the holidays and somehow got this idea that New Year's Eve meant trolling through a Jazz Bar in a seedy corner of 1930s Manhattan about to make so many different choices that will profoundly effect one's life for all the years to come, preferably wearing pearls and silk and drinking champagne. Well, there times in life when your choices are made gradually and flow like a river into other choices, and sometimes there are no choices to be made at all, except always the choice to continue on one's set path or to alter it ever so slightly in ways you don't even notice yourself until much later. Also, what is actually wrong with pajama pants New Year's Eve? To which I bring you to old and married New Year's Eve. Old and Married New Year's Eve includes the delicious Love Boat dish pictured above.  We went to Tomo in Slingerlands. Its a great place in general, and the staff is always efficie...

I was lucky enough to receive a gift certificate to Belhurst Castle in Geneva, NY from my in-laws as a birthday gift! We stayed in the Chambers in the Castle , in which each of the rooms is unique and charming. We stayed in the Garrett Room, which was the only one vacant and not the most luxurious, but still great. It is a completely relaxing place with a really fascinating history. We're talking architectural beauty, pure class, insanity, gambling, and finally tourism and incredible hospitality. Scroll down here for the history - its a great read. There are complimentary chocolate castles, a wine spigot that spits out unlimited red wine free with your room (!), free slippers, a super comfortable bed, and incredible lake views. There's also something about lake front air that has a really fresh taste to it. There's also a great lounge, Stonecutter's , and fabulous restaurant, Edgar's . Oh they also have a spa and sell and offer tastings of their own wine. What more...

 The week before last week, we went to the Magnetic Fields show at Club Helsinki in Hudson. I hadn't really been to Hudson before outside of an Amtrak car, and I'd always heard great things about it. You can just get tickets to see the music, but it is way classier to get a table and eat dinner while you watch the show. Also, the menu is great . It is Southern inspired and makes use of local, seasonal ingredients. I got their first and ordered a glass of Pinor Noir which was very tasty, and some of the fried okra with a Cajun remoulade to start. I happen to love okra done right, and this dish had a nice corn meal crust which wasn't greasy at all. I took in the surroundings, like what I imagine the Copacabana to have been like in some far off past decade. Scott showed up and we got some of the delicious beers from nearby Chatham Brewing . For dinner, I got the Helsinki burger, which was really juicy and "topped with applewood smoked bacon,  roasted portobel...

Going out for my 30th birthday first started out with the question of what to wear. I took the approach that I learned worked best for my bachelorette party and showed up at Marshall's looking to spend about $20 and find something appropriate. I was looking for something that said "Hey, I am here to have fun, but I know it is not 21 that I am turning!" After finding that and checking out, I ran into Albany celebrity Erin Harkes who sang our first dance at our wedding . She is a great woman. I couldn't love her more. Anyways, here I model my 30th birthday party outfit for you: Those heels I have only wore before down the aisle of my friend's wedding (we switched to flip flops not long after) and to my bachelorette party. Living in NYC for almost 5 years ballet flats became my go to for everything, but this seemed like an occasion for heels! Unfortunately, walking around Crossgates Mall in high heels turned out to be less than ideal. I did buy some great ...

Today I took a break from dogsitting and went to the Albany Wine & Dine for the Arts , at the Hotel Albany , (formerly the Crowne Plaza) where we had our wedding almost exactly six months ago. In fact, the Grand Tasting was in the very same room where we had our wedding reception. It really made me appreciate our wedding all over again. Sure, there were issues I had with weddings relating to materialism and gender , and it is silly the way people expect weddings to be this "one perfect day" . But going back there and remembering everything - the Prime booth was where our wedding cake sat, the Taste booth was where Erin Harkes performed Adele's "Make You Feel My Love" for our first dance - I thought it actually was about the most perfect of a day as I could ever experience. Wedding planning can be so difficult and require so many different skills that not everybody has, but if you do it right and follow your vision and don't compromise too much, it c...

I thought that our New Year's Eve party turned out to be a fabulous time, if I may say so myself. I have a few tips that I can share. As with all entertaining (especially events where alcohol is involved), I think it is important to have lots of water available to drink. People may not think to ask for it, but they are likely to drink it if it is there, and they should drink it.  There is some formula that can probably be worked out in terms of the cost of buying disposable items, and the labor involved in cleaning up items you already own. I think paper plates and plastic cups fit into the first category, but actually that silverware falls into the second category. There are attractive disposable options for forks, but they get up to the price point where it is not worth it. The ones that cost $2 (at Party City ) look cheap. We have a whole bunch of old forks in a box in the basement so I brought those up to use. Normally, I try really hard to serve only finger foods, bu...

I took yesterday off of work months in advance to attend an author signing and cooking demonstration by Amanda Hesser for the Food52 cookbook. We woke up super early, drove to Poughkeepsie, took the Metro-North, took a cab from Grand Central, and made it to Sur La Table on 57th street just in time - just in time, that is, for their staff to tell us it was postponed because the store hasn't finished installing their kitchen yet. So unfortunate. What a let down! So we just killed some time hanging around Columbus Circle and then met our friend at Prune Restaurant for lunch at 1st and 1st. Scott had the sweetbreads with capers and bacon. I had the burger on an English muffin with Cabot cheddar cheese, and our friend had the skate with a lemon caper sauce. Hers also came with a potato slaw with some sesame sort of dressing with it. It was all amazing. A side view of the burger: We also had desserts: churros and a poached pear with brandy and creme fraiche. ...

A couple of years ago I tried a candy cane cocktail at Bellini's . It was so good, and I kept going back trying to figure out how to make it. This is what I came up with: 2 ounces vodka (I like this Prairie vodka . It is from Minnesota, and apparently not available everywhere. It was also reasonably priced). 1 1/2 ounces white cream de menthe Smash up candy canes and wet rim of frosted glass. Dip rim in pile of candy canes on a plate. Shake with ice in cocktail shaker. Strain into cocktail glass. Enjoy that taste of the holidays! While I know there are plenty of drinks that can serve to warm you up from the cold weather like red wine or wassail, this drink is the taste of cold weather. Crisp, freezing, exhilarating - the taste of winter - feels like your breath fogging up a glass window on a bright 30 degree morning or stepping onto an icy patch on a parking lot with shiny black, high heel  boots and feeling the ice crack below.

We've been to The Point several times now, and my feeling is that it is better as a place to meet people for drinks and snacks than it is a good place to go for dinner. Pros:  Large amount of space is good for meeting a group of friends. Desserts - Cheesecake lollipops ("Sweet, decadent cream cheese spheres"), and cinnamon doughnuts ("Cinnamon Delights- Bite size, cinnamon and sugar doughnuts garnished with cinnamon glaze, Chantilly cream and berries") were ridiculously delicious. Cocktails - I had the "About Thyme 9, Aromatic. botanical. refreshing. Hendrick’s gin, Pimm’s #1, muddled cucumber, splash of lemonade, splash of club, fresh picked thyme." I loved it. It was very refreshing. Also a lot of other options looked interesting too. Appetizers - We had fried green beans with a wasabi sauce, and some kind of sampling of multiple appetizers, including the crab cake, that were all very good. Cons:  On several occasions the music was too...

I have tried a few of the spirits available from the Berkshire Mountain Distillers , and they are all very delicious.The rum, corn whiskey, and Greylock gin are all very good, but my personal favorite is the Ethereal gin . It is very complex in flavor. It is heavy on the botanicals, and has such a full, complex interesting smell you really want  to take in the bouquet before you drink it. I don't even mix it with anything usually - it is that delicious. They also make them in small batches, and the label color changes to let you know it is a new batch and may taste slightly different. Before discovering the Berkshire Mountain Distillers I was almost always a Hendrick's woman (I love cucumber), but this stuff is great and I love that I am supporting a local company. I hope one day they will offer distillery tours.  Undergrads have taken over college campuses everywhere wearing tights as pants, and everyone is spending their weekends going doughnut picking - so that mean...

 We just got back from our honeymoon this weekend. We did sort of a west coast tour which included a lot of winery visits. In Napa, we visited the Elyse winery where we tasted some really amazing wines , and a port that really impressed us. Previously, we had worried about tasting wines that seemed too expensive for us to purchase, but looking back it doesn't matter if you buy a bottle or not, you still get to enjoy your tasting (many places the tasty fee is waived with purchase of a bottle though so might as well if you really like it). The Elyse winery visits are by appointment only, partially they said to avoid drunken bachelorette parties and rowdy people in limos, but you can actually call that day and still get an appointment. Then, we visited Domaine Carneros which had some really nice sparkling wines. The tasting area is a bit of an over the top ostentatiously French looking set up, which is actually a very nice spot to enjoy some flights of bubbly.  In Sonoma, w...

With our wedding done, the time has come to make more things with our wedding gifts. Tonight, this involved making a beef, vegetable and barley soup in our new Dutch oven , and then after dinner fixing the first cocktail with new new martini glasses and cocktail shaker. (Actually, we got two cocktail shakers -- any capital regionites want our old one?) I thought an appropriate choice was the king of cocktails , the Manhattan. In this case, made with Sazerac Rye.* Delicious! *In Manhattans, my position is that rye is better than bourbon -- the hint of sourness and spice works well.

 I don't even think I have to comment on this. We had a grand time making fun of this Cotton Candy and Bubble Gum flavored vodka. No joke, courtesy of Exit 9 .

My colleague Robert Farley speaks the truth about the discourse on mint juleps, which of course can be applied to cocktails more broadly: What I have discovered is that the literature on the mint julep can be wholly characterized by this formula: "Mint juleps are vile, except ones that use [insert bourbon] over [crushed, shaved, cubed, etc. ice] with a bit of [crushed mint, bruised mint] on the [top, bottom] along with [a little/lot] of [granulated/powedered/syrup]. Any divergence from this recipe is a/an [disgrace/abomination/abortion/unholiness] that only a/an [moron/idiot/dilettante/frat boy/sorority girl/tourist/alcholic] would drink." Indeed. On the narrow issue at hand, I've never had a mint julep I liked. Or, for that matter, mojito; I think I can say that mint in drinks is a genre I Don't Get.

Today we are picking out the food for our wedding next month. While I totally trust the venue , I don't have very high hopes. My lack of high hopes was creating by an essay by Julie Powell in this book . Powell states that: "Hundreds of guests + unreasonable expectations + catering - billions of dollars = rubber chicken. " She also goes on to say: "Very long names for things should have set off the first alarm bells. The long-name thing is something that works for fancy restaurants. But when caterers employ the trick, it's to try to convince you that they are fancy restaurants rather than what they are, which is caterers. Unlike chefs, caterers do not cook to order. Caterers cook great huge batches of things, then pack them into large tin containers and carry them in vans to church basements or the grounds of local art museums, where they reheat the food on chafing dishes. Many foods can be eaten very satisfactorily this way, but these foods usually ...