Tis the Season for Spiced pecans

This is a tradition I have inherited from my mother-in-law. Every December I find myself up to my elbows in deliciously gooey pecans. I love the sound they make when I turn them in the oven and the way they make my house smell; they are as much a part of Christmas as trimming the tree. They also make wonderful gifts and we give pounds and pounds away each year. Enjoy.


Joann's Spiced Pecans

1 lb shelled pecans
2 egg whites
2 tsp cold water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp all spice

Preheat oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease cookie sheet. Beat egg whites and water in a large bowl until frothy and toss with pecans. Add sugar, salt, cinnamon, clove, and allspice. Stir until well-coated. Spread pecans onto cookie sheet and bake for one hour, stirring every fifteen minutes.

My Five Favorite Local Christmas Events

These are ranked in no particular order. All are activities that we have enjoyed over the past several years.

1. Christkindlmarkt - Bethlehem, PA

2. Kozier's Christmas Village - Bernville, PA

3. A Longwood Gardens Christmas - Kennett Square, PA

4. A Dickens of a Christmas - Manheim, PA

5. Christmas Light Show (used to be the Wanamaker's Light Show) - Philadelphia, PA

Happy holidays everyone!

The Hunt for a Good Baguette

The best baguette I can find in Chester County is from Talula's Table in Kennett Square. As everything they do is spectacular, this isn't exactly surprising. But what about when I don't want to drive all the way to Kennett for a loaf of bread? My next best option is Wegmans in Downingtown. Their baguettes are lovely, chewy, and fresh but just not as authentic in texture and taste as those at Talula's. If the 15 minutes to Wegmans also proves too much I am stuck with the normal supermarkets (or Panera, which I do not like to support). Of the two near me, Acme's baguette is far superior to Genuardi's, which is a wimpy, sad excuse of a bread. Every once in a while I will attempt to make my own but, while my attempts are tasty, the crust is never dense enough.

I did once have a baguette from Food Source in The Shoppes at Brinton Lake but as I don't recall it at all I assume it was neither good nor bad.

So does anyone out there have any other options? It's really a travesty that good bread is such a rare commodity in this country. Bad water and over processing are de rigueur.

A Steady Rain

I was in New York last night and was privileged to see one of the last performances of A Steady Rain starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Both men are absolutely incredible actors to see live. Here is the description of the play, taken from its website:

Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman star in the most anticipated theatrical event of the season: A Steady Rain. This new American play by Keith Huff tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and whose differing accounts of a few harrowing days change their lives forever. Directing is John Crowley.

A Steady Rain is produced on Broadway by Frederick Zollo, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Raymond L. Gaspard, Frank Gero, Cheryl Wiesenfeld, Jeffrey Sine, Michael Rose Ltd, The Shubert Organization, Inc. and Robert Cole. Set and costume design are by two-time Tony Award winner Scott Pask, with lighting design by two-time Tony Award nominee Hugh Vanstone and original music and sound design by Mark Bennett.

It is not a happy work. In fact, I haven't been so disturbed by a piece of theater since I saw Angels in America: Perestroika performed in the late nineties. Of course, the fact that it made me feel physically ill is a testament to the power of the play. Fortunately, once it ended, an auction of the undershirts both men were wearing in order to raise money for Broadway Cares did much to lighten my mood. Each shirt went for $10,000 and a third bidder was promised a pair of pants in consolation. I was highly amused.

It's unfortunate the play is at the end of its 12 week run. Surely it will be staged across the country by a variety of theatrical groups and I urge everyone who loves theater to see it, though it is not for the faint hearted.

Quick Thanksgiving Follow Up

I have been too busy to sit down and review our holiday meal and now it seems a distant memory. I'll so my best, however. Everything came out wonderfully except the ice cream (still tasted good, just never solidified, probably due to too many Cranberry Mistos). Jamie really had something special going on with the crunchy mashed potatoes, a new idea of his. These are for those who like a rustic mashed potato, not those super whipped, smooth concoctions. We left the skin on most of the potatoes but took long scrapping of it off several. Jamie then fried the skins and some large chunks of garlic, all of which she stirred into the potatoes. I have long loved garlic mashed potatoes but never was able to make them garlicky enough. Frying the garlic before hand left every bite of the potatoes full of flavor. I was very pleased and, as always, impressed by my husband's creativity in the kitchen.

Jamie made a turkey stock that night which he turned into a turkey and rice soup the next day. Way more satisfying, to my way of thinking, than the ubiquitous turkey sandwich. I think we created some new and worthwhile traditions this year.

Thanksgiving

So we're at my sister-in-law's house cooking away and I thought it would be fun to take a break and brag about our meal. Jamie, as always, is in charge of the turkey. This year we got an organic, free range bird from Westtown Meats on 202. He's basting it right now and it is soooo pretty. Brined since Wednesday morning in a solution flavored with orange juice, brown sugar, and onion, he massaged the bird with an herbed butter mixture which he stuffed under the skin along with orange slices and rosemary sprigs. It smells wonderful.

For appetizers, we have already consumed some rosemary spiced cashews, a chunk of raw milk manchego(from Wegmanns)with brown honey sauce on top, and three rounds of cranberry misto cosmos. All the recipes for these very yummy items came from the foodnetwork.com holiday section.

Our turkey will be accompanied by some pear and cranberry chutney (made by me - a family favorite), "not your mama's green bean casserole" (courtesy of Alton Brown, also via foodnetwork.com), artichoke and spinach stuffing, roasted tuber salad (another Jamie specialty), crunchy mashed potatoes, and homemade gravy. For desert there is a caramel apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and a apple crumble torte (also from Wegmann's). My sister-in-law is making the vanilla ice cream right now and the scent of fresh vanilla bean just penetrating over the turkey is divine. We also have mulled wine and hot cider to drink.

So I'm ready to chow down. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'll recount the highlights of this meal in my next post.

Ingredients: Pure Honey

Did you know that eating local honey helps curb allergic reaction to your regional pollen? So maybe there isn't a scientific study actually proving this concept, but it makes sense, right? I've heard proponents of herbal remedies push this one for years and, being pretty allergy prone myself, have taken to eating local honey for the past few years. I can't say my allergies are gone so perhaps I should be rationalizing this as more of a 100 mile diet thing. Either way, local honey is the point.

This past summer, at the Turks Head Music Festival, held in West Chester, PA, Jamie came across a booth run by a local honey manufacturer called Swarmbustin' Honey out of West Grove, PA. He bought four jars of honey which we have been greatly enjoying ever since. Our absolute favorite has been the Buckwheat Honey. Not just a sweetener, as Jamie says this stuff has "mad flavor". It's become our go to honey for salad dressings, on top of ice cream, and I even think he might even have thrown some in the chili he made last week. This honey would make awesome granola but we haven't tried it yet. The Fall Wildflower Honey has been our next most used, we've really enjoyed adding it to our pizza doughs. The last two are both Golden Honey, one in its raw form. I've always loved raw honey - I spread it on toast and put in in my yogurt (yummy Greek yogurt, made out of sheep or goats milk, not this American crap and, god forbid, certainly not this hyped up pro-biotic shit, which people don't seem to realize is just a marketing scam as all REAL yogurt contains pro-biotics). The processed stuff is perfect for baking and for sweetening a cup of peppermint tea to sooth a scratchy throat in winter.

Our supply is beginning to run low so we will have to contacting Mr. Walt Broughton, owner and operator of Swarmbustin' Honey, soon to restock. I'd love to try this new Garlic Honey Vinegar he's advertising and all of his different flavors of Mountain Creme Honey, especially the Hotpepper (doesn't it just sound fabulous!). So whether it's helping my allergies or not, I'm definitely sticking with this local honey. Sometimes tasty is more important than healthy.

One last thought: the honey bee population is in grave danger in North America and the problem has spread to Europe. Without bees, not only will we not have delicious honey but about a third of our agricultural products will go unpollinated. This isn't just bad news for bees, this is bad news for life on a global scale. They're calling the phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and some are suggesting that radiation from cell phones is behind the problem. So what do we do? Companies like Haagen-Dasz and Burt's Bees are trying to raise awareness while activist groups like the WSBF (World Save Bees Fund) are trying to politicize the issue. Bottom line is that we need bees. Please spread the word.

Woodberry Kitchen

On Saturday night, Jamie and I joined some friends in Baltimore, Hillary and Glenn, at Woodberry Kitchen for dinner. This is a very different restaurant. The atmosphere is causal hip and greatly profits from the restaurant's location in an old factory turned art studio, now on its third life as some kind of a planned community. The service was highly competent but unusual, our waitress displaying a passion for the food she was serving with an air of proprietorship that wait staffs almost never display (and of which I thoroughly approve). The menu focuses on local, organic foods and the preparation is an odd blend of upscaled and down home American that (usually) works quite well.

Glenn and Hillary have been to this restaurant many times so they knew the drill. We began by ordering off of their very creative list of cocktails - more flash and flare than substance (though I approve of their wine flight offering). Rather than appetizers we ordered "snacks": Ladyfinger Popcorn, Black Rock Orchard Pears, French Breakfast Radishes, and Deviled Eggs (with shaved ham on top - these were my favorite). The popcorn was small and, therefore, hard to eat, the tarragon butter with the Radishes was lovely, and the pears were poached (I'm pretty sure) and sweetened with a buckwheat honey, Jamie's favorite condiment at the moment. These are literally snacks, more along the lines of tapas than appetizers: just enough to warm you palette for the upcoming feast.

Next we shared three flat breads. Before detailing these I'd like to rant about flat bread for a moment. It's become very popular to have flat bread on your menu lately but these tend to be much more akin to pizza than true flat bread. The flat bread at Woodberry Kitchen is heavily leaning towards pizza and only really passes as flat bread because the topics are sparse. That being said, they were delicious. My favorite was a shrimp and pork belly combination that was simply decedent. Next came the short ribs with an onion chutney, and finally a pumpkin and squash combination that was wonderfully seasonal, though I thought the root veggies should have been cooked a bit more (opposite of my usual complaint).

For our entrees, Hillary had a baked rigatoni with sausage that was exactly what you would want such a dish to be - perfect comfort food. Jamie had a butcher's plate with a variety of meats (from blood pudding to speck) to sample, some mustard, and toast points. This was the most disappointing dish of the evening. Jamie said the bacon was off: kind of an incredible feat, not sure how they managed. Glenn had chicken and waffles, a slightly healthier version of a soul food favorite. Instead of deep frying the chicken they pan fry it between two cast iron skillets to get it crispy. The dish was excellent. I had one of their specials, scallops with sweet potato gnochhi. This was awesome. I am very pleased I ordered it, though it was hard to choose between it and the other special, same day slaughtered, free range, organic veal. I would have liked to taste that as well.

I skipped desert but the other's were quite pleased with theirs, including a sundae that had been super hyped on the food network (looked like a pretty regular sundae to me, except for the sugar glazed lid on top). I did have a terrible cup of espresso though (Jamie's was better - not sure what happened there).

I really want to go back to Woodberry Kitchen and check out the super lush sounding Sunday Brunch. I'd also like to sample their oysters, which no one else at the table seemed particularly interested in doing. The food was excellent, if a bit pricey for dressed up home cookin'. Overall I'd say that this is one of the better restaurants I've eaten at in Baltimore, after Charleston (one of my favorite restaurants in the country) and Petite Louis.