Sandee’s toasting tomorrow’s inauguration with a special “fresh start cocktail.”  I’m not usually one for overwrought imagery, but the delicate fruit flavor is quite refreshing change from the dark and stormy winter we’ve been suffering. And no, I really don’t know if I’m talking about the 18 feet of snow that’s fallen these past couple months of those eight years we’ve suffered.

The holidays are past, but we still have a sweet tooth here.

• chocolate shavings for rimming
• 1 part crème de cacao
• 2 parts vodka
• dark chocolate garnish

Warm a martini glass over a small flame, then roll the rim in chocolate shavings. Put a square of dark chocolate in the glass, then prepare the liquor. Shake vodka and crème de cacao with ice and strain into glass. For additional flavor, sprinkle the top with cocoa powder or chocolate shavings.

Please tipple responsibly.

Oh decadence! Veterans Day provided not only a chance for reflection but also a rare day free from the classroom. So what to do with this open period of time? The answer was easy, dinner party.

I have wanted to have my colleagues Roxanna and John over, but time is always an issue. I phoned them up and they accepted. Now the fun began — menu planning.

While vacationing with my parents in Vegas last summer we went out to marvelous food chain, The Cheesecake Factory. I had their sumptuous fish tacos and have been dying to recreate them. I knew my guests were fish friendly so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

What stood out most in the dish was its lively combination of flavors: delicate whitefish, a tangy, creamy avocado sauce, crisp Asian greens, Mandarin oranges, and crisp red cabbage. The combination was a taste delight.

Of course, restaurants are often loathe to share their recipes and trying to figure it out for yourself is an adventure, so here’s what I did. First, I brushed a little extra virgin olive oil on a baking dish. I placed four tilapia fillets on the baking dish and gave them a liberal dose of kosher salt. I stuck the pan in a 375-degree oven for 25 minutes.

Then I took three ripe haas avocados, sliced them open, removed the pits, and scooped their insides into my trusty food processor. To that I added about a third of a cup of limejuice, three tablespoons of fat-free sour cream, salt to taste, and about half a cup of half-and-half. I blended it until smooth and creamy. Depending on the size of the avocados you may want to add more half-and-half and/or limejuice. It should be rather thick but easy to spread.

While waiting for my fish to finish up I organized everything I needed to make the tacos. I shredded up a small head of red cabbage and I took from the fridge a bag of mixed Asian greens, and the flour tortillas. From the pantry I removed a can of Mandarin orange segments, open and drained them, and placed them in a small bowl.

When the fish was finished I let it cool for about five minutes then I flaked it with a fork. To assemble the tacos I warmed the tortillas on a large skillet, then I spread each tortilla with some of the avocado cream sauce, the I put down a small handful of the greens, a small two or three heaping tablespoons of the fish, another dollop of the avocado cream sauce, and then a smattering of the cabbage and five or six Mandarin orange pieces. I fold these in half and set a wooden spoon on them for a few minutes to keep the fold.

I served the tacos with saffron rice, black beans, (purchased in the Mexican section of my local grocery store) and, of course, a big pitcher of margaritas.

We’re huge fans of The New Joy of Cooking by Marion Rombauer Becker, Irma S. Rombauer, and Ethan Becker. Hardly a meal goes through our kitchen that isn’t shaped in some part by the recipes and general information in its pages. A recent discovery was Joy’s description and defense of cocktail parties.

So, when a book as serious and valuable as The New Joy of Cooking raises alarms about the declining future of cocktail parties, we listen. Cocktail parties are important, they’re an American invention that should be honored. So, host or attend a cocktail party today and raise your glass in hopes that everyone may someday have the freedom to toast in peace.

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First Impressions

How much is too much for an entree at a place that plays the kind of anonymous Muzak that Kenny G calls jazz and is decorated like Applebee’s? Trust me, I like renovated mill buildings, but why confuse it with faux grecian columns and too many pictures of dead celebrities? I mean, the interior was clean and pleasant, but lacked attention to detail. If you’re so afraid your customers are going to walk off with the poorly framed prints of old Hollywood darlings that you nail them to the wall through the frame, how much can you expect them to pay for dinner?

Drinks and Appetizers

Still, Cotton’s martinis have been voted the best in New Hampshire. I tried the sampler, a trio of fruity cocktails served in adorable 2.5 oz martini glasses. The flight included a lemon drop martini, a raspberry cosmopolitan, and an orange crush (the crush had me humming REM all evening, but I’m a dork like that). Casey ordered the Vesper (he’s a dork for Bond-themed drinks), a cocktail of gin, vodka and Lillet as they prepare it.

Whatever points the place lost in atmosphere they seemed to regain with the Martinis. The drinks were fresh and light with lovely flavors. My favorite was the lemon drop. So many restaurants serve a syrupy martini which I hate, these were clearly a step above.

To accompany the cocktails, we had the Lobster Artichoke Dip. The flavor of the dip was good, but the homemade corn chips they were paired with were far too salty and overpowered the more subtle flavors of the dip.

Entrees

On special was a pork tenderloin in a mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes and sauteed greens. It was plenty tender, but the sauce that covered everything was bland and cried out for some fresh herbs. Casey’s “Meat and Potatoes” suffered from a similar saucing issue. I am not sure why the chef felt it necessary to drown our food with blandness.

Conclusion

We should have moved on after our cocktails and appetizers. The music killed Casey, but I will happily return to Cotton for a pre-dinner martini at the bar, then I will continue my search for a Manchester restaurant I love.

Details

Cotton
75 Arms Street Manchester, NH 03101 — phone: 603 622 5488
Dinners priced $13-30
Lunch:Monday-Friday, 11:30AM-2:30PM
Dinner:Nightly at 5:00PM

Cotton, restaurant, food, dinner, review, restaurant review

Like all well bred women, my mother always told me not to play with my food. However, as we get older we realize that sometimes ignoring the rules is just as important as, generally, following them. Food is fun. It has wonderful tastes, smells, colors, and textures. Something with so many wonderful attributes is just begging to be played with.

For me, breakfast is not just the most important meal of the day, its also the most wonderfully yummy for one specific reason — maple syrup. I live in New Hampshire and we take our maple syrup very seriously. While those of you in the rest of the world (except our dear neighbors in Vermont) like the nearly clear, grade A maple syrup (or, god forbid, Mrs. Butterworth) we know that the best syrup is the rich, dark, delicious, grade B syrup. Since every weekend breakfast at MaisonBisson must contain food that is syrup friendly, we eat more than our share of pancakes, french toast, and waffles. Last weekend I decided to have a little fun with breakfast. Mr Smiley here is the result. My husband liked him a lot, and I think others who are young at heart, or just plain young, would enjoy him too. Its easy and it reminds you not to take things too seriously.

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Hot weather demands cool drinks. Lemonade is fine for the kids, but adults need a pitcher of something more entertaining.

• 2 parts Vodka
• 1 part Orange Juice
• 2 parts Lemonade
• dash Lime Juice

Prepare in a pitcher with ice and share. Adjust quantities to taste.

Enjoy safely.

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So once again, my husband called on my assistance with a Friday Food Fiesta challenge. This week’s theme was cookies and biscuits. I scoured my pantry, but alas, like Old Mother Hubbard, my cupboards were practically bare. The one interesting thing I did have was a bag of Hershey’s white chocolate chips. So, between my meager rations and a quick trip to our town’s tiny market for butter, I cobbled together the ingredients needed to make the chocolate, white chocolate chip cookies on the Hershey wrapper. The only alteration I made to the recipe was to substitute my favorite Ghiradelli cocoa powder for the Hershey’s that they suggested.

However, at MaisonBisson we are not satisfied with mere cookies. When I called Casey to let him know I made the cookies he responded with those three little words: “ice cream sandwiches!” Sometimes that man can be an absolute genius! I e-mailed a list of ingredients for him to pick up on his way home and let my cookies cool.

When Casey came home he brought with him a gallon of Bryer’s Vanilla Bean ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, and mini chocolate chips. We stirred up the ice cream to soften it, placed a nice scoopful on a cookie, pressed another cookie on top, and rolled the edges in the sprinkles or the chips. We wrapped each sandwich in a square of aluminum foil and let them rest in the freezer. We ended up with about twenty sandwiches. Friends stopped by and helped us polish off some of them but the others remain in my freezer taunting me. They are really very delicious and very easy to make.

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My wonderful neighbor, Wendy, went berry picking and dropped me off a large container with luscious, fresh blueberries and raspberries. I decided to try a bit of an experiment and use the batter for one my favorite cakes with the berries. The result was this heavenly sour cream berry bread.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour an 8-cup loaf pan.
Melt 5 tablespoons of salted butter, pour into a large bowl, let cool.

Add and stir together until smooth:

• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 large eggs

Add in pinches to break up any lumps and whisk in:

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Stir until just combined:

• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Fold in:

• 1 cup of berries (I used a 50-50 mix of blueberries and raspberries.

Pour into the bread pan and bake for one hour to one hour and 15 min.

The bread is delicious warm, cool, or toasted and buttered.

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Now matter how depressed I got in New Orleans, I still had to eat. A tip from the ladies at Molly’s on Toulouse led me to Yo Moma’s with instructions to try their peanut butter burger.

Yes. Peanut butter. On a burger. I was also told that if I don’t like mayo, I should tell them to hold it because they’ll put it on thick if I don’t.

Yes. Peanut butter, on a burger with mayo. Indeed, it even had bacon bits.

And, as it turned out, everything was in the right proportion. Each flavor revealed itself in every bite, and they were all yummy.

This might be one I’ll try at home.

Edit: changed some sloppy wording to correct the bad grammar Matt pointed out.

food, peanut butter, hamburger, yo mama’s, restaurant

Ok, the truth is that at MaisonBisson we celebrate all holidays with a drink. Since we take cocktails quite seriously, I wanted something very pretty for the little Fourth of July soiree we were having. I have found that the secret to a perfect strawberry daiquiri is using frozen strawberries. I also use lots of crushed ice and a ripe banana — it adds a nice creaminess. I garnished with whipped cream, blueberries, and star fruit.

It’s an easy and delicious recipe.

• 2 cups crushed ice
• 1 cup rum (light or dark depending on your preference)
• 2 cups (a 16 oz tub) of frozen strawberries (thawed)
• ripe banana

Combine all ingredients in a large blender that can crush ice. Blend, pour, and garnish.

Warning – this is a delicious drink and goes down really easy. If you are not careful you could find yourself standing by the bonfire and singing Yankee Doodle Dandy in your birthday suit.

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My beloved husband went off on a Boy’s Adventure Weekend. This left me with the entire house and kitchen to myself. When this happens, I become a bit like a mad scientist left alone in my laboratory. So, it was just me, the cats, and that most dangerous invention, Food Network. After some house work, chick flicks, and visiting with my parents, I spent an hour putting away laundry and watching Emeril. He made a great looking cold cucumber soup and I just had to try it. It’s been over 90 degrees and very humid in New England, something we are not used to, and this dish seemed like the perfect antidote to the sweltering heat.

I woke up on Sunday and went off to my local market and raided the produce section. I had decided that a nice salad nicoise would be the perfect accompaniment to this dish. I also picked up a bottle of my current favorite cheap wine, the pinot grigio produced by Twin Fin (available from Wine.com). I headed home and got cooking. My plan was to have a lovely late lunch waiting for my husband when he returned from his manly outing. I find its important to remind him of the comforts of home.

The soup was a blast to make because it required no cooking. It gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time with my beloved food processor. I altered the recipe a bit by using only one jalepeno, I’m a wimp when it comes to spicy foods. The final product was lovely, cool and refreshing. I think that next time I make it I’d like to add a citrusy note, maybe lime juice, I think it would give it a little something extra.

To make the presentation special, and because I am big geek who loves to make things look pretty, I decided to serve the soup in a couple of our martini glasses. I garnished with chives from my garden and snipped a couple of the chive blossoms as well. When my husband returned home, all sweaty and smelly, I first sent him to the shower. Then, we settled down to this perfect summer lunch and laughs about his camping misadventures. Then I sat and sipped my wine and watched him clean up the kitchen, a perfect Sunday afternoon.

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Like so many women, there are days when my desire for chocolate is nearly overwhelming. However, perhaps because I am a tad high maintenance, my cravings are not satisfied by a mere candy bar. When I crave chocolate I want something rich, decadent, and freshly baked, I want chocolate cake.

When one of these cravings coincided with finding the first of the year’s native strawberries I decided to combine the two, the result was the cake you see above. I made a chocolate cake from my personal culinary bible, The Joy of Cooking. I joined the two layers with a chocolate frosting and then spread a layer of frosting on the top of the cake. On top of that, I arranged blanket of fresh strawberry slices. Finally, I consulted the bible again for directions for my first attempt at a chocolate ganache. The ganache came out a bit more watery than I was hoping for, but the end result was actually pretty interesting, a rich chocolate glaze that revealed the strawberries. The result? Chocolate craving quenched.

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Who wouldn’t enjoy a frozen mud slide on a hot summer day? Typical recipes call for crushed ice and cream or ice cream. For some reason, we decided to try making them from ice cream, from scratch.

The MaisonBisson Frozen Mud Slide

This recipe requires an ice cream maker, we used the Deni Scoop Factory.

• 1.5 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• .5 cups Bailey’s
• dash vanilla

Mix ingredients in bowl, then pour into ice cream maker’s freezer container. Follow your ice cream maker’s directions about time to freeze. Our Deni Scoop Factory was done in about 30 minutes. Spoon frozen ingredients into glass, add appropriate amounts of vodka and Kahlua and stir. Top with whipped cream and a cherry. Enjoy.

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My computer geek husband, who I do adore, joined a Flickr photo group called Friday Food Fiesta. A new theme is announced every Friday, and everyone contributes a single photo that illustrates that theme. The first themes he contributed to were burgers and pizza, but when salads came up, he needed help. Luckily for him, I love making salads. So Casey, my husband, asked me to be his partner in crime and create a salad for him to photograph and submit.

Well, it was a gorgeous spring day to I decided we’d grill and make a little party out of it. I wanted to create an original salad and I decided it would be a surf and turf salad. I tossed a big bag of spring mix greens in a lime vinaigrette and l spread them out a large serving tray. Then I grilled up a bunch of jerk marinated beef and some pineapple slices. If you’ve never grilled pineapple you must try it! It gets a wonderful caramel crust. (Would also be fabulous with some vanilla ice cream!) I sliced the beef in thin strips and arranged it on the tray with the grilled pineapple. Then I added some mandarin oranges and large handfuls of lobster meat. I garnished the platter with the top of the pineapple and served the salad with the extra vinaigrette on the side.

The resulting salad was a visual and taste delight. We invited over some friends and had an impromptu party. I whipped up some cocktails with pureed frozen raspberries, dark rum, and seltzer. And we mellowed out in the back yard with some good cocktail tunes. (I recommend the Zumanity soundtrack by Cirque du Soleil and anything by Pink Martini.)

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My favorite place to eat in all of New Hampshire is LA Burdick’s in Walpole. It’s a chocolate shop and cafe and I’ve never had anything there that isn’t sinfully delicious. We took my mother-in-law there for Mother’s Day this year. We started the meal with their delightful cheese plate. This featured four cheeses in a range of intensities, a delightful fruit chutney, olives, seasoned nuts, and crackers. The cheeses were all wonderful and could be purchased at the market next door, many are by local artisans. We took home a creamy sheep’s milk cheese and a tangy blue.

For entrees Judith, my mother-in-law and I both enjoyed the salad nicoise. This version featured perfectly prepared tuna, egg, roasted peppers, new potatoes, green beans, and some delightful pickled red onions. My husband had the steak frites, cooked to perfection. We enjoyed this with a couple of glasses of house wine. The meal was simply scrumptious.

At Burdick’s desert is not an option. Unless you are a robot, their sweet confections are quite simply too good to pass up. Judith and Casey, my husband, both had frappes made from Burdick’s homemade ice-cream. Judith had the chocolate-banana and Casey had the chocolate-strawberry. The frappes were thick and a rick dark-chocolate in color. I sampled both and I can honestly say that these were the most delicious frappes I’d ever had. I had the hazlenut-orange cake and it was perfect, nutty and sweet.

Of course, I can’t leave Burdick’s without a take-home treat. The brazilian chocolates are my favorite, I savor their rich taste long after I’ve returned home. When I run out, I know its time to go back.

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First it was meat hats, then SuperModelMeat. Now it’s meat cakes.

Yes. Three layers of meat, with ketchup and potato frosting.

It all happened when the groom announced that a man’s cake should be made of meat, ’cause “wedding cackes are all girly.” Apparently a red velvet armadillo groom’s cake isn’t manly enough.

Funny thing, now there’s a growing gallery of meatcakes. (Via.)

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Tabasco thinks their peppers and eponymous sauce are hot. Anybody who’s just ate a habanero thinks that’s a hot pepper. But earlier this year, Paul Bosland of New Mexico State University said “Damn, I’ve got a hot pepper.” And the Guiness World Records folks agreed.

Bosland had identified the Naga Jolokia pepper and measured it at over one million Scoville Heat Units, quite a bit more than three times the burn of a hot hot habanero. National Geographic Magazine charted it up in a recent issue:

BBC Gardening charts it slightly differently, calling the old habanero much mightier than NGM’s list, and putting the Dorset Naga, the UK’s entry into the race, up at more than 1.5 million SHUs (pepper spray is two to five million SHU, pure capsaicin is over 15 million):

• Dorset Naga, 1598227 SHU
• Caribbean Red Hot, 530283 SHU
• Orange Habanero, 487672 SHU
• Fiesta (grown outdoors), 286185 SHU
• Scotch Bonnet, 265054 SHU
• Apache, 103282 SHU
• Fiesta (grown indoors), 102328 SHU
• Paper Lantern, 85486 SHU
• Adorno, 67726 SHU
• Etna, 65937 SHU

Wikipedia explains some of the discrepancy:

Pungency values for any pepper, stated in “Scoville units,” are imprecise, due to expected variation within a species—easily by a factor of 10 or more—depending on seed lineage, climate and even soil (this is especially true of habaneros).

Both the Dorset Naga and Naga Jolokia were derived from peppers cultivated in India, but all the world’s peppers come from the Americas. Like potatos, corn, and tobacco, they spread rapidly after the European encounter and are now embraced in the traditional cuisines around the world.

Today, Cinco de Mayo, is as fine a day as any to test yourself with the hottest peppers you can find. Just keep the margaritas flowing.

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Despite the mystery, porklets are quite yummy, at least according to Sandee’s recipe.

What I want to try next is bacon cheesecake or chili powder on french toast or maraschino cherries mixed with jalapeños. All of those sound delightful to me.

Extra: sausage man, don’t eat that, don’t try this at home.

bacon, cheesecake, chili powder, food, jalapeños, maraschino cherries, porklets, french toast

The holidays are long since past, here’s a drink to carry you through ’till Spring.

Rusty Nail

• 3 parts Scotch
• 1 part Drambuie

Serve over ice in an old fashioned glass.

Please enjoy it responsibly.

Let the vexillographers cringe, flag desecration never tasted so good.

Sure, it’s barbecue season, but that’s no reason not to enjoy breakfast. And what better way to break fast on the Fourth of July than to dress waffles as sugary, fruity flags? Do that with your hamburgers. Do that with your potato salad. Do that with your hot dogs. (Okay, I can imagine a few ways to do that with all of those, so let’s see the pictures.)

Related from MaisonBisson Kitchen: Celebrate Independence Day With A Drink.

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Ian Chadwick’s In Search of the Blue Agave begins:

“Tequila is Mexico,” said Carmelita Roman, widow of the late tequila producer Jesus Lopez Roman in an interview after her husband’s murder. “It’s the only product that identifies us as a culture.”

No other drink is surrounded by as many stories, myths, legends and lore as tequila and its companion, mezcal. They transcend simple definition by reaching into the heart of Mexico, past and present. The turbulent history of Mexico is paralleled in the stories of tequila and mezcal. One cannot fully appreciate Mexico without some understanding of tequila’s place in its history and culture.

So as we celebrate Cinco de Mayo, that victory of Mexican forces over French invaders, raise a glass of tequila in General Ignacio Zaragoza’s honor.

(More of Michael Calderwood’s delicious photos are online.)

The plan was to meet Jessamyn and Greg at the India Queen last night, so discovering this note yesterday on Slashfood about “frankies” had the added excitement of both discovering a new food I wanted to eat, and being in a position to get it that day — the sort of instant satisfaction one doesn’t expect in these parts. Here’s the description:

The frankie is an Indian street-type food made of a thin bread similar to a tortilla that is coated with egg and fried. The tortilla is filled with meat and/or vegetables, then rolled like a burrito.

[This frankie was filled with] enormous chunks of lamb meat straight out of Hades. Granted, I wasn’t reaching for the fire extinguisher, but it was still spicy enough that on a breezy winter day in LA, I had to lightly dab my forehead. I felt awesome.

Sadly, it wasn’t to be, as the Queen was closed when we arrived, and for all I know they don’t serve them anyway. Maybe next time.

I convinced Sandee to join me at Atomic Liquors on Fremont Street, just beyond the Western Hotel Casino in what the Las Vegas Sun calls the “gritty underbelly of Las Vegas.”

Owner Joe Sobchick and his wife Stella started business in 1945 with a cafe called Virginia’s. They converted it into a bar in 1953, and changed the name to recognize their proximity to the nuclear tests just 60 miles away.

Now nearly 90, Joe believes he’s been in business longer than any other single bar owner in town, and it’s been a good run. You’ll see his sign in TV, magazines, and movies, most famously perhaps in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) with Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone.

The decline of the neighborhood challenged the Sobchiks, but they fought back. And amazingly — for a city that is constantly reinventing itself — the community seems to have stood behind them.

There is, supposedly, some historical meaning to our Thanksgiving holiday, but all I can figure out is that I wasn’t there and it probably didn’t go as I’ve been told. Thing is, Thanksgiving isn’t so much about what we were, but who we are. Thanksgiving celebrates the two most important things in life: food and family.

Almost unique among US holidays, retailers haven’t yet found a way to commercialize it. International readers may wonder how a US holiday can exist without commercial involvement, but they should know that we make up for it in the way we eat. We will stuff ourselves, then get seconds and perhaps more. We will tell stories or play a game. Then we will have desert; apple and pumpkin pies are the tradition. After that, it’s back to the turkey again.

tags: apple, desert, eat, family, food, holiday, holidays, meal, pumpkin pies, stuffing, thanksgiving, thanksgiving holiday, turkey