Oldie, but goodie.

Forgive me for rehashing old content, but nothing beats Gourmet's 2008 holiday issue for sheer holiday inspiration. Luxe, lovely and delicious.

I'm only including a couple of photos here, but you can check out this 2009 Queenie post for the full shebang.

Garlic and parsley and capers - oh, my!

Meatless Week may be over, but I didn't have any meat for dinner on Monday night, and these mushrooms are to blame. Smitten Kitchen posted about these a few weeks ago, reminding me of my intention to make them for ages and ages now.

You see, these mushrooms are made in the style of escargots de Bourgogne - roasted on high heat and smothered with lots of butter, garlic, capers and parsley. After all, the butter left behind once the snails have been eaten is always the best part.

These mushrooms are, in a word, delicious.

Seriously. Not only are these pretty much the easiest thing you can make, they are also freaking phenomenal. I ate mine with some crusty baguette and a glass of red wine, and I honestly can't think of a better supper on a cold winter night.

Roasted Mushrooms de Bourgogne
Republished from Gourmet, via Smitten Kitchen

1 lb. small mushrooms, cleaned and stems removed (I used cremini, which were large and needed to be quartered.)
2 tbs. capers, drained, rinsed and chopped
3 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbs. vegetable oil
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place the oven rack in the center.
In a shallow 1 1/2 quart baking dish, toss together the mushrooms, capers, garlic, oil and several grinds of black pepper. Dot with the butter and roast for 15-20 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender and a bubbly, golden sauce has formed in the bottom of the pan.

Remove the pan from the oven and toss the mushrooms with the lemon juice and parsley. Serve immediately, preferably with a loaf of crusty bread.

Serves two. No, really - you'd think the recipe would serve more, but they're just too damn tasty.

Perfect pancakes...and peaches.

A couple of years ago, during my annual visit to Nick and Louisa, we ate the most delicious pancakes I have ever tasted. They come to us - unsurprisingly - courtesy of the amazing Ruth Reichl, who added her own personal pancake recipe to the Gourmet cookbook. Their marvelous texture and flavor come mainly from an exorbitant amount of butter in the batter and from being cooked as pancakes should be: gently, in just enough fat, over a moderate flame.

In fact, no matter the recipe, those are the basic principles to making a quality pancake. Too many of us let the skillet get too hot, or fail to wipe it down between batches. Doing so results, respectively, in burned outsides and raw insides, as well as a smoky, gritty mess of a pan. By following a few simple steps, we can all avoid the dreaded "first pancake" syndrome, and turn out perfect specimen after perfect specimen.

First of all: use enough oil, but not too much. If you are using a non-stick skillet, you want only the thinnest film of oil, about half a teaspoon per batch for a large (8 to 12 inch) skillet. For a standard skillet, use just a bit more; you should be able to swirl the oil around a bit - but just a bit.

Keep the heat moderate; when you drop your batter into the pan, it should hiss slightly and not stick, but it should brown slowly to a golden hue, not quickly to dark brown or black. Just keep an eye on it; if the edges of your pancakes bubble rapidly immediately, the pan is too hot. Don't be precious about adjusting the heat as you go; the pan will change in temperature as you add or remove pancakes to it. You must compensate by adjusting the flame.

Wipe out the pan between batches, and add fresh oil. If things have gotten really sticky and icky, use a bit of water to get the brown bits up from the bottom before wiping with a paper towel.

Finally, pay attention! Pancakes are not something you can walk away from. Watch how they bubble, how they firm up around the edges; they will not cook on a perfect schedule, so you must pay attention to them and flip them according to their own time.

Now that you know how to make pancakes in general, why not try these in particular? I've taken Ruth's superlative version and riffed on it a bit; the butter has been browned, and I've added chopped fresh peaches to the mix, in a nod to a) the season, and b) the fact that I didn't have any blueberries in the house this morning.

I hope you enjoy them!

Browned Butter Pancakes
Adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook

1 cup buttermilk (plain old milk will work, too)
2 eggs
3 tbs. canola oil
8 tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup flour
4 tsp. granulated sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3-4 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Additional canola oil, for cooking

In a small skillet or saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Continue to cook just until the butter turns slightly brown and smells nutty. Set aside until cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs and oil, then whisk in the cooled, browned butter. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, backing powder and salt. Stir in the milk mixture until just combined.

Heat 1/2 teaspoon or so of oil in a large skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Working in batches of two, pour 1/2-cup measures of batter into skillet. Drop five or six peach cubes into each pancake and cook until bubbles have formed on top and broken, about two minutes.

Flip pancakes with a spatula and cook until undersides are golden, about a minute or two longer. Remove from the pan to a warmed plate. Wipe out the skillet between batches, adding oil for the next batch to the clean skillet. Continue until all the batter has been turned into pancakes!

Makes about eight pancakes.

Grill-tastic.

One of the best things about having an actual backyard is the ability to grill with abandon. I really, really miss grilling; it's been almost nine years since I had a grill at my disposal, and, believe me - I feel its absence.

So, of course, I was seriously psyched to get to eat a whole lot of grilled goodies during my trip to Ohio last month. Nick and Louisa are pretty amazing with the grill; Nick's ribs in particular are really. Effing. Good. On this trip, though, we tried to be a bit healthier, and went with slightly less naughty cuts and sauces. We grilled some gorgeous peppers and spring onions one night, to eat alongside...

...this. This is matambre (courtesy of The Gourmet Cookbook), a traditional Argentinian preparation for flank steak. You butterfly the flank steak and fill it with a mixture of breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, spinach, bacon and carrots, held together with a bit of the rendered bacon fat. Rolling it and tying it for grilling is most definitely a two person job, but once it's ready to go, it's easy to finish.

And super-easy to eat. The meat was seriously flavorful after sitting only an hour or so full of filling; it would probably be even more impressive having sat around for a whole day - which you can totally do. An excellent option for making ahead of time.

Another night, we tried Gourmet's Foolproof Grilled Chicken. It's brined before it's grilled, and once it's cooked, you dip it in a spicy, Asian-inspired vinaigrette made with fish sauce and lime juice. It is, in a word, delicious.

And did I mention...smoky from the grill? Oh yes.

240 boxes full of pudding.

OK, not really. In fact, no boxes of pudding were harmed in the making of this particular dessert. But every time I think of pudding, I'm reminded of that so-funny-it-hurts sketch from The State, where Barry and Levon got, um, familiar with a serious amount of pudding. Watch it, if you like, then read on.

So, back to the pudding. The chocolate pudding you see above is a leftover cook's treat type of deal. I made this (delicious) chocolate cream pie to bring to dinner at my brother and sister-in-law's place a couple of Sundays ago, and there was just enough pudding left over to make a nice dessert for me on Monday night.

The pudding is intensely chocolatey. It bears little to no resemblance to a Jell-O pudding cup, and that's a damn good thing. You melt and blend both bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate into a homemade pudding, then add a touch of vanilla to round things out, and some butter to make them nice and smooth. It's so chocolatey, in fact, that you really do need the sweetened whipped cream to cut through the richness.

Not like I've ever needed an excuse to eat plenty of sweetened whipped cream.

Dark Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Gourmet

5 oz. fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
3/4 tsp. salt
6 large egg yolks
4 1/2 cups milk
3 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into bits and softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Sweetened whipped cream, for serving

Add the chocolates to the top of a double boiler (or just a metal bowl set over simmering water). Melt chocolates together, stirring, until smooth. Remove the bowl from heat and set aside on a trivet or pile of dishtowels to cool.

Next, in a heavy saucepan (about 3 quarts) whisk together sugar, cornstarch, salt, and egg yolks until combined well and add milk in a stream, whisking. Cook mixture slowly over moderate heat, whisking constantly.

The custard will thicken gradually, and eventually will begin to boil (You'll see bubbles pop on the surface.). Continue to whisk, keeping the mixture smooth as it thickens to a near pudding-like texture. This can take several minutes; be patient. Don't turn the heat up too high, as the custard can scald.

Once your custard is pudding-like, remove it from the heat and force it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Whisk in the cooled chocolate, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Cover surface of the pudding with plastic wrap and cool completely in the refrigerator.

When ready to serve, spoon the pudding into small bowls and top - generously - with whipped cream.

Serves 6-8.

Queenie's Treasury

Happy weekend, readers! Here in New York it's a cold, sleety sort of day; the kind of day made for curling up with a book in front of the fire - or, in my case, the teeny Christmas tree. If your weather is similarly gray, I hope these tidbits will brighten it up a bit.

First off, a new project from three great food bloggers (Maggie of Pithy & Cleaver, Jennie of In Jennie's Kitchen and Olga of Sassy Radish). Those of us who miss Gourmet will do just about anything for a fix of the real thing. Luckily, Gourmet, Unbound has arrived to fill a little bit of the hole left behind. Each month, they're collecting a series of posts about Gourmet recipes past and publishing them on their new site. Each month they'll feature recipes from any year in Gourmet's history; the recipe, however, must be from an issue matching the month in question. (In other words, January will feature recipes from Gourmet's January issues, and so on.) Check out their December posts for holiday meal planning inspiration!

Next, from Design*Sponge, a super-cool (and pretty) recipe for wassail, the traditional Christmas punch. Booze + pretty photos + the holidays = happy Queenie.
Last, but not least, an inspiring reading list from Michelle over at Feminine Modern. I've read a few on this list, and am now lusting after French Market Cooking. France? Local produce? Sign me up! A great list for gift-giving inspiration, to be sure.

Finally!

For a long time now - years, really - I've been on the hunt for a great pumpkin bread recipe. Most of the ones I've tried have been insipid and sweet, too loaded down with oil to actually bake all the way through without burning to a crisp on top, or just plain boring. Finally, though, I think I've hit gold. Or orange. Or whatever.

Ironically, it's a recipe that's been sitting in my apartment for over a year now. It was featured as part of a review of Cindy Mushet's The Art and Soul of Baking back in the October 2008 issue (which also has a great article about the Wonka-esque effects of a meal at Alinea), and I'm completely in love with it. It, unlike so many other pumpkin bread recipes, features ginger, allspice and cloves - not just allspice and cinnamon. It has a nice balance of spicy and sweet and bakes to the perfect consistency. Like most quickbreads, it's a mix-and-dump affair, which only adds to the appeal. In short, it's awesome.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. I test-drove it (minus the walnuts) at work (where its fragrance perfumed our entire pod within an hour) and at my book club meeting last week, when I sent everyone home with leftovers.

Now it's your turn - enjoy!

Pumpkin Walnut Bread
Adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet

The one thing I changed is the amount of ginger - I think a little extra dash really gives the bread a nice zing.

2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup prepared pumpkin
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°F and position the oven rack in the center. Butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan and line it with parchment paper, ensuring the paper extends an inch over the rim on all sides.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger and salt until well-combined. In another, medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and water. Add the sugar and blend well. Add the pumpkin, canola oil and vanilla extract and stir until combined.

Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is blended and smooth. Add the walnuts and stir with a wooden spoon until the nuts are evenly distributed. Using a spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 45-60 minutes, until the bread is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a rack and allow to cool completely before slicing. Leftovers should be wrapped in aluminum foil and left at room temperature (where they'll keep for two days) or in the fridge (where they'll keep for four days).

Queenie's Treasury

Sorry that the Treasury is a bit late this week - I woke up this morning and was busy with housework (and lunch with the bro and sis-in-law) until...right now! (OK, I admit - I paused to mix myself a Manhattan.)

First up this week, a truly awesome blog. Cherrypatter NYC is a look at fabulous things to do - and places to shop and eat - all over New York. It's full of gorgeous photography and great content. Just this week, Cherrypatter has spotlighted the Eero Saarinen exhibit, provided a guide to 5th Avenue in the 100's, and visited Mario Batali's pizza restaurant, Otto. If you're planning a vacation to (or staycation in) New York anytime soon, I highly recommend you check this out.

Next up is something a bit less cheerful, but still pretty darn interesting. Kevin DeMaria, a former Gourmet staffer, took a series of photographs of the magazine's offices and staff members as they packed up their stuff (note the preponderance of wine) and wrapped up their work back in October. Wistful, funny and lonely, these photos capture both the end of an era and the very human side of corporate downsizing.
I subsrcibe to a few wedding blogs, mainly because they tend to showcase great photography and some amazing ideas for events that can be easily translated to dinner parties and holiday decorations. One of my favorites, 100 Layer Cake, regularly features what they call "Real Weddings," though they look more like fairy tale concoctions of hipster perfection. This week they featured Chris & Jessica, and I was completely blown away by everything about their nuptials. The bride's turquoise shrug (I'm a big believer in colorful wedding parties), the souvenir tea towels, the seaside setting...love, love, love.

Inspiration.

I've started thinking about (as opposed to concretely planning) food for the upcoming holiday season, and leafing through my old Gourmets and Saveurs for inspiration. This weekend, I picked up Gourmet's December 2008 issue and decided that it is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful they've ever produced.

Between Romulo Yanes' incredible holiday cookie spread, where the cookies are paired with contemporary and vintage textiles, and Roland Bello's breathtaking, fashion-conscious Hanukkah meal shoot, the magazine had never been more gorgeous or effortlessly stylish.

Swoon with me, won't you?

Queenie's Treasury

Happy weekend, my doves! This week was a long one at the office (meetings, meetings, meetings), so a bunch of these Treasury items come not from internet research (The last thing I wanted to do when I got home at night was get back on the computer.), but from my daily NPR podcast listening - and my mom!

First up, what I learned on NPR this week. I listen to several NPR podcasts on a regular basis, since it's easier to listen to my iPod than to juggle a book on my daily commute, and Terry Gross's Fresh Air is one of my favorites. Last week she interviewed none other than my food writing idol, Ruth Reichl! Reichl is out and about doing the book tour for Gourmet Today, and the interviews she's been giving have been fascinating. She's been very open about the end of Gourmet and her experience of the news. She and Terry also talk a lot about Ruth's last book, the short memoir Not Becoming My Mother, and about sustainable fishing.

Speaking of sustainable fishing, Reichl recommends using this tool provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to keep track of which fish are OK to eat, since those things can change from week to week, depending on weather conditions, season and so on...

Next, the incredibly cool article my mom clipped from Travel & Leisure! Rufus Wainwright, one of my favorite musicians, spent a good chunk of his childhood in Montréal, and offers readers a few of his favorite spots. I'd already been considering a jaunt up to Québec sometime this winter (when prices are cheap), and now I'm all but decided. Rufus could probably convince me to jump off a bridge; luckily, he's more likely to croon something about opera or art.

Finally, another travel-related tidbit. If you're sick of staying in hotels or charmless corporate apartments when you're away from home, why not give airbnb a whirl? You can rent apartments or rooms for short- or long-term stays, and most of the homes I saw were gorgeous, design mag-worthy creations. I'm sure not every property on the site is perfect, but New York for $100 a night - without having to share a bathroom with strangers? Sign me up.

Where do I buy mourning clothes in San Francisco?

I'm back from vacation and working in San Francisco for a few days. This means I'm three hours behind the East Coast news cycle, and so this morning my email and Twitter feed were positively packed with messages about one tragic thing: the closing of Gourmet magazine.

To put it simply, I'm crushed. I've read Gourmet religiously for the past five years or so, and have fallen completely in love with its open-minded approach to food, its passion for travel domestic and foreign, and its gorgeous writing and photography. The current incarnation of Gourmet owes most of its soul and much of its aesthetic to the wild-haired, obscenely-talented Ruth Reichl, who left her job as the New York Times' restaurant critic to take up the helm at the (soon-to-be) late magazine.

Under her guidance, Gourmet became a publication for those truly passionate about creating and consuming food. Less chef-obsessed than Food & Wine, but more worldly than Bon Appetit, Gourmet emphasized home cooking but never forgot about the restaurant world.

Many people have criticized the magazine's photography as cold or hard; I disagree, and heartily. The simple, spare aesthetic on show at Gourmet far outpaced most food magazines in its sophistication and pure illustration of good, homemade food.

This blackberry brown sugar cake is one of my favorite Gourmet recipes of all time. I shall be making it in the weeks to come, as a sort of remembrance. While I can't wait to follow the next steps of Gourmet's immensely talented staff, that anticipation hardly softens the blow.

Now, excuse me while I go sniffle in the corner for a bit.

A banner arrival.

The first thing Louisa and I did when we got home from the Cleveland airport? Pore over some cookbooks, of course! Each year when I visit, we cook up a storm, and this week has been no exception. We set to work planning the week's meals and treats, and made a preliminary grocery list to get us started.

Up first, the cover recipe from Gourmet's April issue - a strawberry mascarpone tart with a port glaze. It was a raging success - we managed to find some just-ripe strawberries, despite its being a bit late in the season, and the grocery store had scads of mascarpone on offer. (Not always a done deal out here in northern Ohio.)

The tart is remarkably easy to make. You make the pastry in a food processor and press it into the tart pan - no rolling out required. The crust itself is flavored with lemon and vanilla, which takes it beyond the usual pâte sucrée. Chilled in the freezer for a few minutes, it bakes up golden and flaky. Just before serving, you mix the mascarpone with a little confectioners' sugar, lemon, vanilla and salt, make a glaze with some port (and the reserved juice of your macerated berries), and put the whole thing together.

It's a great dessert for warm weather - the only baking required can be done a day in advance, so you won't turn your kitchen (or entire apartment, in my case) into a hellishly hot den for your guests. It's easy, but it also makes a visual impact - and it tastes pretty damn good, too.

And, in the spirit of leftovers: we had a little extra filling left, and we spread it on our scones the next morning. We think we might make the filling by itself just for this purpose from now on.

Getting ready.

My regular readers know that I am growing more and more impatient for the arrival of summer's bounty to the Greenmarket. I'm craving berries and tomatoes and corn and peaches - and I can almost taste the strawberries, which are bound to show up any day now.

In preparation, I've been reading through last summer's issues of Gourmet. It hasn't helped allay my cravings - but it has reminded me of a couple of recipes I wanted to make last year and never got around to tackling. Among them are the Aussie burger, tomato and honeydew salad, grilled watermelon and tomato salad, and cheesecake with minted blackberries.

I also found a dessert I made last year that I want to make again this summer: mascarpone-filled cake with sherried berries. Oh yes. Come to Mama.

Photo of the mouthwatering cake is courtesy of Gourmet.com.

The stuff of life.

The cover of the latest issue of Gourmet features a drool-worthy pile of freshly baked rolls - salty topknots, yeasty fantails, sesame-encrusted whole wheat...you name it, it's there. I could practically smell the yeasty goodness rising off of the page. How could I resist trying out at least one of the recipes?

So, last Sunday, before I headed out to do my laundry, I whipped up the dough for a batch of buttermilk fantail rolls (using the buttermilk I'd picked up on my Saturday outing). I picked the fantails because they seemed like the easiest for a novice bread-maker like myself (and because they were so gosh-darned purty).

They really were remarkably easy to make - you let the yeast ferment a bit with some warm water and sugar (I used some of the turbinado sugar I keep on hand for my coffee), add in the butter, flour, buttermilk and salt, and then knead the resulting dough for a few minutes before setting it aside to rise.

After about two hours or so, you punch down the dough and roll it out in two batches, slice the dough into strips, stack 'em, and cut crosswise to make the fantail shapes. Slap those babies into buttered muffin cups, let them do the second rise, and then bake. Enjoy the smell of baking bread for the next twenty minutes, then take your pan out. Brush them with butter straight out of the oven, and ten minutes later, you've got rolls.

My oven is a bit tricky, and I probably need to adjust the cooking temperature down just a bit, so they bake a bit more slowly and end up tinged golden and brown rather than brown and darker brown - but they still tasted dang good with the salad I had for dinner (and with lunch the next day).

Don't do this if you want them to say "I do."

February's issue of Gourmet has a useful and ultimately hilarious article about making romantic gestures - proposals of marriage or otherwise - in restaurants. It starts off as a what not to do list, and ends up with some great stories of proposals gone horribly, horribly awry - and some that went well, too!

Classic, tongue-in-cheek example of why Gourmet is one of my favorite food mags.

UPDATE: I found the article - click away!

Image courtesy of rmrayner on Flickr. Some people lust after diamond solitaires; I prefer sapphires.

An anticipatory moment of silence, please.

The word on the street is that Gourmet Magazine, helmed since 1999 by the truly remarkable Ruth Reichl, may be on its way out. Since 2004, their ad pages have dropped from 1,364 to 955; Conde Nast may be feeling overextended in the food mag department, given their simultaneous investements in Bon Appetit and Epicurious.com.

The choice of Bon Appetit over Gourmet may be the best fiscal choice, but is not, in my opinion, the right one. Under Reichl's direction, Gourmet has become slightly too aspirational (some of the serving pieces featured cost a week's salary), but it's also highlighted little-known travel destinations (Strasbourg, the Auvergne, Laos, western China), and championed delicious foods made with quality ingredients.

Reichl brought in superlative food photographer Romulo Yanes, whose pictures routinely rise above traditional "food porn," as well as the coolest roadies ever, Jane & Michael Stern. She also nabbed David Foster Wallace, who penned a hotly discussed essay entitled Consider The Lobster for the August 2004 issue.

Reichl not only writes the only editor's letter worth reading every single month; she has also transformed Gourmet from a housewife's staid bible to a sophisticated cook's fantasy fodder.

If Ruth Reichl is anything, she's a survivor. If Gourmet does close up shop, she'll take on a new challenge, and it will be a thrill to see what she does next.

But I'll still be a little bit sad.

Oh, happy day!

The March issue of Gourmet arrived in my mailbox yesterday, and I could not be more excited. The issue is all about French food, specifically bistro cooking - my absolute favorite to cook, and one of my top three (along with Vietnamese and Italian) to eat!

To make things even better - they have an Alsatian menu featuring onion tart, chicken braised in Riesling, and a gorgeous endive salad. Like Strasbourg all over again, brought to life in my own kitchen. Though I might have to forgo their nut-filled dessert in favor of the more Parisian profiteroles with coffee ice cream.

And did I mention the recipe for frisée aux lardons avec oeufs en meurette? Must go home...must cook...must turn on Edith Piaf and pretend to be in Strasbourg...

Au revoir, mes cheris!