Dr Pepper BBQ Ribs for Superbowl

We're not really big sports fans here, but any excuse to make ribs and have people over is ok with me. These ribs turned out really good-they are sticky and sweet, but not as sweet as the popular commercial sauces like KC or Sweet Baby Ray's- which I find a little too cloying.

I soaked the ribs overnight in salted Dr Pepper, remove them from the brine a couple of hours before you grill them so that they can dry well before you grill them. I made a simple dry rub of cayenne, cumin, and ground pepper and applied it before I put them on a very low charcoal grill. You must keep all the coals off to one side of the grill and place the ribs on the side without the coals so that it becomes an indirect heat and smoke source. Add more coals to the fire as the old ones begin to extinguish. It took over three hours and I estimate the grill temperature to have stayed between 275 and 300 degrees. During the last 1/2 hour of grilling, I began applying the glaze. The ribs were sweet and sticky, but they were not swimming in sauce. They were also juicy, tender and succulent. I should point out that I bought the ribs at Soulard Farmer's Market, from a local grower-you can never over state the case for good, fresh meat to start with.

Dr Pepper Glaze

2 cups Dr Pepper soda

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup molasses

Mix all of the ingredients and bring to the boil, reduce slightly until the mixture is thick and syrupy.

Chiliquiles

I'm not sure if this is Mexican or Tex-Mex, but I do know that Chiliquiles are probably now served in cities across the country. Maybe my cousin Kevin will read this and enlighten us, as he is an expert in all things Texan (he's an alum of Texas Tech, and a resident of Plano,Tx), since his wife is Mexican he's pretty knowledgeable about things Mexican. So Kevin, is it Mexican or Tex-Mex and what is the difference between Chiquiles and Migas?

Since I'm not an expert on Tex-Mex or Mexican, I just prepare things the way I want without regard to tradition or protocol. Here is my hands down favorite combination-no salsa, no tomato, and no sour cream-just onions, garlic, corn tortillas, chorizo, nopales, eggs, cheddar cheese.

First I crisp corn tortillas in a skillet with butter, I remove them and reserve them on paper toweling. In the same skillet brown the chorizo, add some chopped garlic and onion, add some beaten eggs and the crisped tortillas, add the nopales and stir cook until the eggs set, stir in some cheese. To serve, top with some more cheese and wrap the mixture in steamed flour tortillas-this is really simple and delicious.

Last week we buried my beloved 96 year old grandmother. Of course we all talked of the many joys she brought to our lives-and food, not surprisingly, was one of the biggest. She was best known for her cream pies and her noodles. On the day ofter her service, my aunt Shirley, my cousin Kevin, and I made chicken and noodles for the family. Aunt Shirley was responsible for mixing up the noodle dough, Kevin rolled and cut the noodles, and I stewed the chickens and made the gravy. Like most women of her time, she had no recipes, she would just eye-ball the ingredients-a pinch of this and a fistfull of that and everything would just come together.

Since aunt Shirley was making the dough, she used aunt Betty's recipe (that would be aunt Betty Crocker).

3 eggs, whipped

2 cups flour (approximate)

Salt

Mix the ingredients thoroughly and let the dough rest, roll out the dough using plenty of flour and turning the dough often until the sheet of dough is very thin. Cut the dough into thin strips, and let the noodles dry-aunt Shirley lets her noodles dry overnight, but we didn't have that much time.

I stewed 4 chickens, picked the meat and let the broth simmer and concentrate. Drop the noodles into the boiling broth, the excess flour clinging to the noodles thickens the broth as the noodles cook and swell slightly, add the picked chicken to the pot and season with salt and pepper. We always serve chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes-this seems a bit starchy, but it's the way we love them.

I'm including a picture of my uncles, her son and son-in-law while they snoopervised our work to make sure they turned out like grandma's.

Mussels with Black Garlic

Black garlic seems to be the "IT" ingredient of the moment. It was originally a food supplement used in Japan and Korea where it goes through a fermentation process which vastly increases its antioxident values. It has an extremely mild flavor-even more tamed than roasted garlic-really more of an after taste of sweet garlic. It is slightly sweet and has an under flavor of licorice, which I intensified by adding the fennel bulb and tarragon. For the past couple of years it has been showing up in the trendy restaurants of San Francisco and spreading from there. Of course, once a trend hits the Mid-West it is usually Passe on the coasts already.

2 pounds mussels, cleaned and scrubbed

1/4 cup minced shallot

1 head of black garlic cloves, sliced

1 fresh fennel bulb, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup white wine

1/2 cup heavy cream

Salt and pepper

Fresh tarragon, chopped

Fresh parsley, chopped

Choose a pan that is large enough to hold the mussels whitout crowding them. It should be wide and shallow, but deep enough so the mussels can open without obstruction when you place a lid on the pan.

Heat the butter and oil and saute the shallot and garlic until they are soft. Add the wine and cream, salt and pepper. Add the mussels and scatter the herbs over them. Place the lid on the pan and bring the liquid to the boil. Cook only until the mussels open-no longer, or the mussels will shrink and become tough.

Serve with lots of crusty bread to sop up the juices.

Pork Loin Stuffed with Ham, Swiss Cheese, Saurkraut, and Apples

1 boneless pork loin, about 4 pounds, butterflied and pounded

1/4 pound ham, thinly sliced

1/4 pound Swiss cheese, thinly sliced

1 1/2 cup saurkraut

1 apple, peeled and diced

1 pound carrots

1 pound potatoes

1 pound turnips

1/2 pound pearl onions

1 cup white wine

1 1/2 cup chicken stock

Sprigs of fresh Rosemary and Thyme

Lay out the butterflied and pounded loin with the cut side up. Cover the surface with a layer of the thinly sliced ham, follow with a layer of the thinly sliced cheese. Spread the saurkraut evenly over the cheese layer and scatter the diced apple over the kraut.

Roll up the roast jelly roll style and tie with butcher's twine.

Peel and blanch the vegetables, separately, place the vegetables in the bottom of a roasting pan and toss with some melted butter and season with salt and pepper, Rosemary, and Thyme.

Brown the roast in a hot skillet with a bit of oil over medium high heat on all sides. Place the roast on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan. Deglaze the skillet the pork was browned in with 1 cup white wine-something fruity like Reisling is good, add 1 1/2 cup chicken stock and bring the mixture to the boil. Pour this over the roast and place in a preheated 350 degree oven and roast for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until the internal temperature registers 160 degrees.

Let the roast rest at least 10 minutes before carving.

Make a sauce with the pan juices and serve with the roasted vegetables

Heavenly Hots

These are without a doubt the lightest, most tender, ehtereal pancakes south of St Peter's Gate. Amanda Hesser's Recipe Redux column in this Sunday's NY Times features this dish. Her descriptive adjectives for these cakes are "feathery, creamy, and tangy". The cakes are the creation of chef Bob Burnham-I could find no information on him other than what I read in the Times article. He once worked for John Hudspeth who opened Bridge Creek Cafe in Berkley in the 1980's. Hudspeth's friend, Marion Cunningham included the recipe in her "The Breakfast Book", also published in the 1980's.

Here is the recipe as printed in today's Times (and also in 1987), and here is my picture of what they looked like when I made them this morning. I paired them with some fresh blackberries and a very light blackberry syrup. Because of the ratio of flour to eggs and sour cream, they have a texture of custard or pudding. Be warned they are difficult to flip because the batter is so loose.

4 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 Tablespoons cake flour

2 cups sour cream

3 Tablespoons sugar

Solid vegetable shortening for greasing your griddle.

Whisk all the ingredients together except the shortening. Chill the batter overnight (I chilled it only for one hour).

Grease your griddle with the shortening. Whisk the batter again and drop the batter 1 tablespoon at a time onto the griddle. The cakes should spread out into circles no larger than 3 inches.

When bubbles begin to surface on the cake, flip the cake and cook briefly on the second side, the interior of the cake should be somewhat creamy. Serve with light syrup.

Coq au Vin

This is a hopelessly frumpy and old-fashioned dish that never fails to charm and seduce everyone, when care is taken in the preparation. It can be a glorious chicken stew, but often it becomes a throw everything in a pot and cook for an hour, or something out of the crock pot to which chicken and wine were added. The literal translation is, of course, cock with wine, and is supposed to be made with roosters and red wine. Mushrooms and pearl onions are the traditional vegetabe garnishes, I added peas and carrots-probably a heresy of some sort, but delicious none -the-less.

Since Julia was my first French teacher-(food, wine, culture, language, etc.) I must reference her "The French Chef Cookbook" as my touchstone. I'm pretty sure she would not like adding peas and carrots to the dish, in fact she recommends peas as an additional side dish to the stew, but definitely not part of it.

To me the most important technique in Julia's recipe is to cook each component of the stew separately and then simmering them together briefly just before serving.

4 rashers of bacon

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 chickens, cut up into 8 pieces each

1/2 cup brandy

4 cups red wine

4 cups beef stock

2 Tblespoons of tomato paste

Bouquet Garnie -I used parsley, bay, and thyme

1 1/2 pounds pearl onions

1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced

1 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

1 pound peas-I used frozen

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup flour

Salt and pepper as needed

Render the bacon in a Dutch Oven, reserve the bacon and add oil to the pan.

Slowly brown the chicken, do not crowd the pan, do this in several batches.

When all the chicken is browned, put them back in the Dutch Oven, add the brandy and flame and reduce til almost totally evaporated.

Add the wine, stock, tomato paste, and bouquet garnie to the pot and bring it to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer over very slow heat until the chicken is cooked. Or place it in a preheated oven for 1/2 hour or 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked.

While the chicken cooks, prepare the vegetables. Each vegetable must be prepared separately. I start with a little butter in a saute pan, add the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and saute over very low heat until the vegetables begin to soften and sizzle, just slightly browning them. Add a little stock as needed to prevent too much browning. Reserve the vegetables until the chicken is finished cooking and the sauce is thickened.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the pot and hold, covered with foil to keep it warm.

Make a Buerre Manie with the flour and butter and thicken the wine-stock mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning, and reduce slightly until the flavor and thickness are correct.

Add the chicken, bacon, and vegetables back to the pot and simmer very briefly before serving-about 10 minutes-remove the bouquet garnie before serving. Really good with potatoes, rice or noodles.

New Year's Dinner

New Years at Gallagher's was a great success. We had two seatings and both were almost totally sold out-the early seating on New Years is sometimes hard to sell-everyone wants to eat late on that evening.

We started with a platter of hors d'ouevres

Dates stuffed with Chorizo and wrapped with bacon

Muffuletta Bruschetta with olive salad

Deviled eggs with salmon caviar

Corn and crab fritters with slaw and barbecue sauce

Japanese beef skewers with wasabi and pickled ginger

Next was the lobster tail with brown butter served with red and gold beet salad.

The entree was Beef Wellington with Sweedish Lingonberry sauce.

Dessert was Bananas Foster, which the waiters made tableside on little rolling carts with portable burners.

Petite Fillets with Green Peppercorns, Port Wine, and Stilton

Last week Whole Foods had a sale on Stilton, so I couldn't resist buying some. That paired with a call from my meat supplier about an abundance of 4 ounce steaks-accidentally cut too small-could I use them for a much reduced cost. Indeed I could use all of it. This is a great sauce for Winter, so rich and complex, we used to make it at the Richard Perry Restaurant to sauce pork tenderloin (Hi Rich if you're reading this-thanks for all the great food). The sauce can also be tweaked to complement chicken or lamb as well.

2 Tablespoons minced shallot

2 cups rich beef or veal stock

1 cup port wine

2 cups cream

1/2 cup green peppercorns-preferably brined-rinsed

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup stilton cheese

Reduce the stock and wine with the shallots by half.

Add the cream and continue to reduce until sauce consistency.

Add the green peppercons and season with salt and pepper-remember the green peppercorns are already a bit spicy.

At the last minute, crumble in the cheese and whisk until the cheese begins to melt.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Palmiers

Traditionally Palmiers (Palm Leaf) are a puff pastry sugar cookie. Here I used a savory filling of sun-dried tomatoes instead of sugar. They are excellent with a glass of Champagne or a martini.

1 sheet of puff pastry makes about 15 slices, cut about 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide.

1 large bunch of fresh basil

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

2/3 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup olive oil

2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

Coarsely chop the basil, tomatoes, garlic,and pine nuts-I used a food processor-could be done by hand

Slowly fold in the oil and cheese

Spread the pesto in a thin layer over the top of sheet of puff pastry

Using the long side of the pastry, begin to roll it up jelly-roll style, when you reach the middle, stop and begin to roll from the opposite side until the two rolls meet in the center

Make 1/2 inch slices and bake on parchment covered baking sheets

I baked them at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes in a convection oven

Hangtown Fry

This omelet became famous in the gold rush era of Northern California. Legend has it being served to both miners striking it rich in the gold fields as well as a popular request for the last meal for men about to be hung. It is a rich dish, and I don't prepare it too often but it is one of my all time favorite omelets. I fill my omelet with oysters, fried in cornmeal and a little cheese, then top with a little spicy chili-garlic sauce and another fried oyster. A little chopped scallion is also nice. Traditionally bacon is also part of the mix, but that is entirely too rich for me.

For the oysters:

Dust the oysters (3 to 4 per person, depending on the size) with a half and half mixture of corn meal and flour spiced with a bit of salt and cayenne.

Shallow fry the oysters in a saute pan until they are crispy and brown, drain on toweling.

For the omelet:

I use three eggs per person whisked with one tablespoon of water (water makes a fluffier omelet or use milk for a richer omelet), season with a bit salt and pepper.

Prepare your omelet pan and add the eggs, stir the eggs briefly until semi-set. place the fried oysters in the center of the eggs and top with a small amount of cheese. Begin rolling the omelet and flip it onto a serving plate. Garnish with some chopped scallion, a teaspoon of hot chili garlic paste and top with another fried oyster. Really good with a glass of champagne for a celebration brunch.

Kitchen Conservatory Cooking Class

Another really terrific evening teaching a class at Kitchen Conservatory last night. I really do get to know alot of interesting people. I seem to do alot of talking at these classes, everyone is just so congenial. I started with the French Laundry's recipe for "Peas and Carrots". Almost any dish from that cookbook is challenging to say the least. Chef Thomas Keller's wit is on display here with this over the top dish. His idea of peas and carrots is this chive crepe filled with lobster and mascarpone, served with a sauce of ginger and carrot juice underneath and topped with a salad of pea shoots.

Next up were lamb chops with red currant-mustard buerre blanc served with pear-parsnip puree. Cognac, walnuts and chocolate filled the pie with cognac flavored whipped cream.

I took some liberties with the recipe as Chef Keller wrote it. For example to get 2 cups of carrot juice he starts with 3 pounds of carrots, put through a juicer-I purchased a good quality carrot juice from the health foods store. So of course I didn't have the carrot pulp to dehydrate, pulverize and turn into carrot dust to garnish the plate rims with. So I will present my mere mortal's interpretation of this food God's masterpiece.

Here are the steps, it could be done in a two day period.

1) Make the crepes

2) Make the lobster filling

3) Make the lobster glace and add to the filling

4) Make the carrot ginger emulsion

5) Make the pea shoot salad

6) Assemble the dish

Crepes

1 cup all purpose flour

Pinch of salt

3 large eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

4 tablespoons of melted butter

Place the ingredients in a blender and mix

Make the crepes in an 8" crepe pan, using about 2 ounces of batter per crepe

Place the crepes, presentation side down on parchment paper and cover until ready to assemble the crepes.

Lobster filling

1 pound cooked lobster meat-I used tails-chef keller used whole lobsters, but not the claw meat

1/4 cup chopped chives

1 tablespoon finely minced shallot

1 cup marscapone

1 tablespoon lobster glace-recipe follows)

Freshly ground pepper and salt to taste

Combine the ingredients and mix well

Lobster Glace

Lobster shells

carrots, onion, celery. parsley, bay leaf. thyme

3 to 4 cups of water

Simmer ingredients for at least 1 hour

Strain the stock and reduce the stock to 1 tablespoon-cool before adding to lobster filling

Carrot Ginger Emulsion

2 cups carrot juice

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

1 carrot, grated

1/4 cup cream

3/4 pound butter, slightly softened

Freshly ground pepper and salt to taaste

Combine the juice, ginger, and grated carrot, simmer for ten minutes. Puree the mixture and return it to the sauce pan. Add the cream and reduce the mixture to about 1 cup. Slowly whisk in the butter a couple tablespoons at a time. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Pea Shoot Salad

1 cup pea shoots-I found them at an asian grocery store or you can sprout your own

Zest of one lemon

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

Freshly ground pepper and salt to taste

Make a dressing with the zest, juice, oil, salt, and pepper

Wash and dry the shoots.

Toss the shoots with the dressing and let marinate 1/2 hour, drain before using.

To Assemble the dish:

Fill the the crepes with the lobster filling (about 1/4 cup per crepe), making a neat little package, lay seam side down on a buttered baking sheet. Brush the tops of the crepes with a little melted butter

Heat the crepes in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes

Ladle some sauce on the center of the plate, use the back of a spoon to spread the suce into a small circle. Place a heated crepe on the center of the sauce, and top the crepe with some pea shoot salad.

Champagne, Fried Oyster Tostados, and New Art

We acquired a new painting this weekend. It is titled "Woodlawn #5" by William Quinn. It was painted in 1979 by Mr. Quinn when he was a professor of art at Washington University. He now resides and paints in Europe. It is a compelling canvas in the post expressionist style with gorgeous explosive colors. We opened a bottle of sparkling wine and nibbled on oyster tostados as we got acquainted and decided to fall in love with each other.

Corn tortillas, cut into canape size, crisped in hot oil and lightly salted.

Remoulade slaw made with green and red cabbage dressed with remoulade dressing.

Oysters dredged in cornmeal and flour and fried until brown and crispy.

Remoulade
1/2 cup mayonaise

1/2 cup creole mustard

1/4 cup chili sauce

1 garlic clove

1 scallion

1 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Puree everything in the food processor.

Use some to dress the slaw, and reserve some to spoon on top of the oysters.

Garnish with sliced scallion and cilantro.

Spaghetti For Breakfast

This was Sunday morning's breakfast, a take on the Italian Carbonara. Traditionally the eggs are just scrambled into the hot noodles and cooked that way. I fried the eggs in the bacon drippings and placed them whole on top of the pasta which had been tossed with the cooked bacon and a little cream. It was really luscious, with the yolk making a rich eggy sauce. Unbelievably I had no parmesan cheese-can you imagine a chef's refrigerator without parmesan?-scandalous! Definitely add the cheese if you have it, if not, it is still a most satisfying breakfast.

1/2 pound cooked spaghetti, with a couple tablespoons of the cooking water reserved

4 rashers of bacon, cut into chunks and cooked until crisped, reserve the drippings

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 or 2 sage leaves, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1/4 cup cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Place the cooked spaghetti in a sauce pan, add a couple tablespoons of pasta cooking water, add the cream.

Add the bacon to the cream.

Saute garlic and sage in the reserved bacon drippings, strain the drippings and return the drippings to the saute pan. Add the cooked garlic and sage to the spaghetti mixture.

Heat the spaghetti until it begins to simmer, turn off the heat and let the noodles steep while cooking the eggs. While the noodles steep they will absorb the cream.

Fry the eggs in the reserved bacon drippings, basting until the whites are set, but the yolk is still runny.

Place the pasta in shallow bowls and top with a fried eggs, top with salt, pepper, parsley, and parmesan cheese.

Weiner Schnitzel , Spaetzle, and Apple Fritter

I'll be running this special in the restaurant for the month of October. German food isn't at the top of the food trends, which all seem to be fixated on Italy and Spain at the moment, but they seem to always be welcome this time of year. For this dish I bread crumbed some tender veal cutlets and quickly sauteed them. I paired them with some Spatzle and sauced the dish with a reduction of hard apple cider, veal demi glace, and bacon. I added some apple fritters for fun.

The cutlets were from the leg, trimmed and lightly pounded, then dredged first in flour, then egg, and finally the bread crumbs. Let the breading set for 1/2 hour in the refrigerator. Saute quickly in a hot saute pan with a bit of oil.

The spaetzle are really easy as well.

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups milk

2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

Salt to taste and add couple gratings of fresh nutmeg

Mix up the ingredients and let them rest for 1/2 hour before pushing through the spaetzle cutter, a large holed colander will work if you do not have a spaetzle cutter. Just place the cutter or colander over boiling water and force the dough through the holes. When they float they are finished cooking. Remove them and hold for serving. When it's time to serve them just reheat with a bit of butter in a saute pan.

For the sauce:

4 rashers of bacon

2 tablespoons of flour

3 cups of hard apple cider

1 cup veal demi glace (can substitute rich chicken stock)

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce I chopped up four rashers of bacon and cooked them in a sauce pan, add 2 tablespoons of flour and make a roux. When the flour is cooked, add 3 cups hard apple cider and 1 cup veal demi glace (you could use a strong chicken stock if you don't have the demi-glace, but the sauce will not be as sumptuous). Cook and reduce for a few minutes. Flavor the sauce with a combination of cider vinegar and sugar to taste. I start with a 1/4 cup of each and taste. Add more sweet or tart to get the right balance for you.

Apple fritters:

For the apple fritters, I cored and sliced the apples, battered them in my beer batter (I substituted the hard cider for beer in that recipe) and deep fried them.

Baetje Farms Bloomsdale

Local farm cheeses are everywhere. I picked this goat's cheese up at Soulard's Farmer's Market last week. Baetje farms is located in Bloomsdale Mo. and the shape of the cheese is reminiscent of the hilly terrain of Bloomsdale. In actuality the cheese is inspired by Valencay, a French cheese that was originally made in a pyramid form until Napoleon, after a series of loses in Egypt stopped at the castle Valencay where the cheese was produced and lopped off the tops of the pyramids. Ever since then the cheese is made with a flattened top-in France and Missouri. The cheese is rolled in ash and salt before being aged. It is an American Cheese Association prize winner-I think it was second place, but I don't remember exactly. It is a lovely winner at that, with a creamy-buttery texture. Very mellow, slightly smokey and salty cheese.

Roti de Porc, poele (Casserole Roasted Pork)

Another Julia Child recipe. Since the "Julie /Julia" movie came out, Julia's book and recipes are on alot of people's minds lately, mine too it seems. Her recipes are so carefully written and explained, and the results from this one are so succulent and rich. This recipe uses the French technique of poele, which is simply a braised roast and translates as that all-American favorite from the 50's-casserole.

I marinated the roast over night in sherry wine with some chopped shallot, chopped garlic, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, black pepper and salt. Remove the roast from the marinade and dry before proceeding with the recipe.

Julia lists several vegetables that could be included. I used turnips, carrots, onion, and pears. Potatoes would also be good, of course, as would cabbage, parsnip, apple, sweet potato, or squash.

3 pound boneless pork roast

4 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, sliced

4 turnips, peeled and quartered

4 pears, cored and quartered

4 carrots, peeled and cut into larger chunks

1 flame proof casserole

1 1/2 cup wine, stock, or a mixture of both

Fresh herbs-I used bay, rosemary, and sage

Brown the pork in the butter

Add the vegetables and brown slightly

Add the wine and stock and herbs-Julia ties her up in an herb bouquet

Cover and bake in a 325 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours. Baste the roast every 1/2 hour.

Julia suggests you remove the roast when the temperature reaches 180 degrees. I removed the roast from the oven when the temperature hit 155 degrees, let it sit to rest for another ten minutes before carving and it was perfectly done.

Pear and Parsnip Puree

Here is a great little side dish for the changing season. My friend Richard Perry used to make this for his Eat Plan dinners-Hi Rich, if you're reading this. It is a really nice accompaniment to roast pork or chicken for the Fall.

2 pounds of parsnips, peeled and cut into 1" pieces

4 medium pears

2 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons melted butter

Salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste

1/4 cup cream

Blanch the parsnips for about 5 minutes

Peel, quarter and core the pears

Place the blanched parsnips in a baking dish

Add the pears, melted butter, honey, salt, pepper, and nutmeg

Toss the ingredients so that they are well mixed

Roasted the parsnip-pear mixture in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes

Puree the mixture, adding the cream

Taste for seasoning and melt some additional butter accross the top-optional

Martha's Apple Blackberry Cake

Martha, like much in modern life these days-I'm thinking politics and recent presidents-is a polarising figure. In other words, you're either a fan or a hater, there is no middle ground. So I'm declaring my support for Martha. In my opinion, her magazine is more interesting and beautiful than Gourmet these days. I guess that means I have to start hating Gourmet-at least this month. This cake is from "Living" 's September issue. It is a very simple and appealing thing to throw together.

Granulated sugar for the pan

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 ounces unsalted butter melted for the cake,plus enought to grease the pan, plus 2 tablespoons more to dot the top of the cake just before it goes into the oven

3/4 cup brown sugar, plus 2 tablespoons to dot the top of the cake just before it goes into the oven

1/2 cup whole milk

2 large eggs

4 apples, peeled and sliced-Martha recommends McIntosh-I used Gala

1 pint black berries

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Optional whipped cream for serving

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9" springform pan and dust with granulated sugar. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, milk, and eggs. Whisk the liquid mixture into the dry mixture.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Arrange the apple slices over the batter. Sprinkle with the blackberries, and gently press the fruit into the batter. Distribute the remaining 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, cinnamon and remaining two tablespoons of butter over the top of the fruit. Bake until the top is golden brown, the apples are tender, and a cake tester comes clean from the center. Let cool before unmolding.

Apricot Tart with Ginger Ice Cream

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 pound apricots, halved

Juice and zest of one lemon

In a 10 inch iron skillet melt the butter, add the sugar and heat until bubbly.

Stir in the lemon juice andf zest

Place the apricots, cut side down into the caramel.

Cover the top with pastry-pie dough or puff patry works

Bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Let the tart cool for 10 minutes, Place a platter on top of the skillet and invert it so that the tart unmolds.

Serve with Ginger Ice Cream

This recipe comes from Charlie Trotter and was part of the PBS series "America's Best Chefs Cook with Jeremiah Tower"-I never saw the series, but I do have the companion book. It is a really special ice cream and works well with peach tarts are well as the apricot.

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup chopped fresh ginger

4 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

Add the ginger to the cream in a small sauce pan and heat to just below the boiling point. Remove it from the heat and let the cream and ginger steep for 1/2 hour, strain the ginger out and discard it. Whisk the sugar into the eggs and whip until the eggs are light and fluffy. Reheat the cream and temper the eggs-do not let the mixture boil, only cook it until it coats the back of a spoon. Strain once more and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Freeze in you ice cream freezer.