Happy New Year!

It's the new Jewish Year 5772 soon and Chuck and I got into the spirit with a recipe from the October 2011 Saveur for holiskes, stuffed cabbage. Only Chuck has the patience to stand over a pot of boiling water to peel off cabbage leaves as they cook, then measure out a rich, savory filling of ground meat, raisins, and spices, roll up each leaf, and carefully pack the roasting pan. We'll be eating these until close to our Christian New Year; luckily, they just get better as they age!

Bonjour!

Yesterday was National Pancake Day, but I had a yen for something more elegant. I've never made a crêpe before, so I went to my copy of Simple French Cooking et voila! Crêpes! With my homemade blueberry jam and a sprinkling of powdered sugar, these delicate discs of flour, sugar, salt, egg, milk, and butter made a gray morning a lot brighter.

The second coming of the 2nd Avenue Deli

Well, it's actually its third venue since they closed up shop downtown on 2nd Avenue, but the newly opened 2nd Avenue Deli on First Avenue at 74th Street is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. Gaye and John Georges came into NYC from Smithtown to see their/our corgi, Grace, last Saturday and we had a terrific take-out lunch of sandwiches of hot corned beef, pastrami, or tongue; mushroom-barley or Yankee bean soup; a kasha knish; pickles; and new to me, stuffed derma. It was an orgy of fat, salt, and flavor. As we waited at the deli counter, they kept shoving tidbits of corned beef at us...I had had a normal-size sandwich portion by the time I left the restaurant! Grace was indulged, we gossiped and laughed; we ate the leftovers for at least three more meals.

BLAST-A FROM THE PAST-A

Does this look familiar? Published in 1991 by Harper Collins, this spiral-bound, all-text kitchen staple looks almost as antique as the 1920s-era Boston Cooking School Cookbook I bought at the used bookstore upstate this summer. Inside, there's Chuck Steak Pizzaiola, Green Beans with Provolone Cheese, and Linguine with Knock-out Garlic Pesto. We've come a long way in our appreciation of Italian food since then.

Chuck picked it up downstairs in our package room. It has never been opened; there's not a drop of oil, smear of tomato paste or smidgeon of parsley anywhere in its 250 pages. Well, we'll fix that! When it comes to James Peterson's challenging KITCHEN SIMPLE and this, to be perfectly honest, I know which one will get the most use!

P.S. That's the Tritone Fountain in Rome in the photo above.

K*I*S*S The Cook

James Peterson's newest book, KITCHEN SIMPLE, arrived in the mail the other day and I've tagged the Tomatoes a la Provencale, the Red Cabbage with Bacon & Apples, the gougeres, the cream puffs, the Slow-Roasted Duck Legs with Sauerkraut. Easy, Mr. Peterson says! Well, I'll be the judge of that. The instructions for everything from using a pastry bag to pan sauces to cleaning leeks to when to skin a fish fillet are clear and concise. I know I'll use these lessons probably more than I'll make the
200+ recipes, but it's a very reasonably priced cooking course, open 24/7 (Ten Speed Press, $30).