Burgers

A few weeks ago, I commented that Buckley's and Palace Kitchen were on my short list of venues that can properly cook burgers to temperature.

My husband and I used to go out for burger night once a month. We stopped doing that a while ago. But in our adventures, we both were disappointed in many our informal "taste tests". One joint (which actually thinks they are an upscale restaurant) wouldn't even cook their burgers less than medium well, even though doing so is not in violation of the Washington State health code assuming fair warning is duly noted. Perhaps we shouldn't have started with the Palace, which I think of as my burger mecca. Anyone around this neck of the woods knows that Tom, ET, Sean and staff create more than just burgers at Palace, but boy do their burgers rock.

Since my Buckley's post, we've found one more. The Pig and Whistle's burgers over in Greenwood sure stood out. It was just what we needed on a Friday night after a busy work week and and had some downtime from the holiday madness. Not only were the burgers grilled to medium rare, they were damn tasty too.

So, I've started a new feature to make up for my dissing. If we taste a burger that is not only tasty, but also properly cooked, the restaurant name is added to my burger list over on the right. See for yourself. Oh and even though the focus on the list is primarily Seattle, I do reserve the right to add burgers from my hometown and other favorite haunts across the country.

Don't be shy, let us know who you think serves great burgers.

My Christmas List for the Foodies in Your Life

A week ago Nancy inspired me. I thought I wouldn't have time in the midst of all my planning and holiday baking. It was easy though in the end to come up with a list of gift ideas for our foodies.... here they are:

• Macrina's panettone. It's listed under Holiday Breads...actually any of these are sure to tickle the fancy of your friends. Would make great hostess gifts. Just be sure they like/can tolerate a little gluten in their lives.
• Rivera pears from Harry & David. My mom sends these out to me when I don't travel back to the hometown for the holidays. This fruit is melt-in-your-mouth good.
• How about a gift box from bumble B design? A thoughtful co-worker turned me on to them. Finding one of these boxes on your door stop is a lovely thing...I promise.
• King Leo Peppermint sticks.... Besides you need them to make your own peppermint ice cream cake if you're anything like my mother. And they come in festive tins. I've found these before at Marshall's and Restoration Hardware.
• Market Spice Tea. A perennial favorite in the Northwest.
• The ultimate: Fran's Grey Salt Caramels. Oh my! If you're as lucky I am, your local grocery story carries them conveniently located by checkout aisles. And she's joined the wired and put up a shopping cart on her site. Lucky you!
• The Seattle Chinook Book. Environmental deals at a steal (price wise that is).
• Feeling charitable? Make a donation to FareStart. It's one of my favorite local charities; what better way to honor your favorite Seattle foodie. While you're at it, make a reservation for an upcoming Guest Chef Night.
• The Chef'n Pepperball. I have the Dual Grinder in stainless and I love it. But the magnetic mini-balls would make a perfect stocking stuffer or hostess gift. Besides, we Seattle-ites must stand by our local inventor.
• Seattle Time's cookie recipes. Order several copies to share with friends. Better yet, make a batch of one of these and give the recipe(s) along with your cookies.
• Homemade: anything coming from you will be made with love. It's time to make and share your mustard, pickles, cookies, spiced nuts, or family eggnog recipe (yep, we got one of 'em…stay tuned).

What about you? What are your foodie gift recomendations? Giving is the fun part, after all.

Sorbet For Dinner

One of the great things of all time is eating what you want for dinner. Yep, in my 40s and still reminding myself that's okay. I had a late lunch of some homemade split pea soup (the perfect thing to make with a left over ham bone) and wasn't too hungry when dinner time rolled around.
Seeing as the husband was on the air working for the evening, it was a great opportunity to cozy up to the Christmas tree lights in my PJs, plop in my Netflix oldie "Mildred Peirce," scoop up some pomegranate-lime sorbet and a couple of cookies and enjoy.

In one of many diversions from my cookbook project, I made this tasty sorbet last week. My pomegranate centerpieces from Thanksgiving needed some attention. I ate the seeds out of one fresh. And I just don't enjoy pomegranate seeds that way. I suppose they are okay in a salad or other side dish, but the mini-pit of each small seed is too bothersome. They scratch my tongue, they taste funny.....I try about once a year and it's time to give up. So I opened up 5 ginormous pomegranates, popped out their seeds and used a large pestle to push the juice through a sieve. It was fun in a get your aggression out kind of way.

I threw in left over fresh gimlet ingredients (minus the gin/vodka of course). Well because those gimlets were just so good I could have drank my way into a frenzy over the next several weeks. I took the left over lime and simple syrup and threw it in with the pomegranate juice after I'd cooked it down a bit with some sugar.

It may have been a cookbook diversion, but using up left over ingredients to make something new is definitely something I learned from my mother. Can't let anything go to waste after all...

Pomegranate-Lime Sorbet
makes a quart

• 3 or 4 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice (fresh is always best so if you have time press the seeds from the fruit).
• 1 cup sugar (some sorbet recipes have a 1:1 ratio of juice to sugar; I don't like mine too sweet, but if you do, you can add more sugar here).
• lime juice
• simple syrup
• 1 egg white

1. Dissolve the sugar in pomegranate juice in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Let cook for a while. You could use a candy thermometer to ensure the liquid heats to 225 degrees.
3. Take off heat and add a mixture of lime juice and simple syrup (equal parts of each). I honestly just did this to taste with my left over gimlet mixture.
4. Leave in refrigerator overnight.
5. The next day add to ice cream machine and let it mix for about 20 minutes. Or follow manufacturer's directions.
6. Pour in a container and set back in to the freezer.

Got to mention the cookies. They taste great, but they didn't really bake well; I messed up the part where you roll them in sugar after they bake. Either I baked them too long or this part of the recipe needs to be re-examined. It could very well be me; I did throw them together in a hurry, so I rushed things quite a bit.

You can hardly blame me, it was a Saturday in December. I was busy getting through my to-do list, which has been laden with holiday musts, and we were dashing out to meet a friend to enjoy the luminarias around Greenlake. The cookies were the Citrus Snowballs from the Seattle Times cookie recipes I ordered last year. It's still not to late for you to order this years and an arsenal of the recipes from the past. They arrive nice and tidy and already three-hole punched for binders.

Turkey Carcass Soup

Throw all your turkey and chicken soup recipes away.... I've found the one! Actually, I've always known about the soup I am now calling "the one." My mom makes it religiously and I've made it once before myself. I must not have followed it exactly and thrown a bunch of other crap in it because I am not remembering it with the passion I felt after tasting last week's batch.

This is the soup I'll always turn to when I want to use up my homemade stock, in the days after Thanksgiving, or when a sick friend needs some comfort.

And here's how I know it's "the one": My husband who does not relish soups the way I do usually eats about 3/4 a bowl of any soup served and then moves on to the rest of the meal. But with Turkey Carcass Soup, he and I were actually fighting over who got the one remaining bowl. I suppose we could have split, but I caved in.

Last week, I pulled our two turkey carcasses from Thanksgiving out of the freezer and went to town, re-creating the recipe from Jane Brody's "Good Food Book."

It's a multi-step process. First you make stock, then you make soup. I recomend dedicating a weekend to the event. It's an event after all. Stock on Saturday, soup on Sunday. Voila, dinner is served. It makes for a perfect Sunday wind-down to the weekend. If only I could bring back the Sunday Disney movies and Mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom companion to the "soup and grilled cheese nights" of my childhood.

As Brody suggests, my mom gets her carcasses from her friends who have no interest in using them beyond their initial purpose. She also saves the chicken wing parts she clips off. Her friend Marty is one of her best carcass suppliers from what I hear.

The stock is proof positive that homemade is the way to go. You can stop right here and just make stock, or you can take it to the next level and follow Brody's recipe for Turkey Carcass Soup. It's full of good for you barley and earthy vegetables such as mushrooms and carrots.

This is one recipe that my mother hasn't really adapted, though you could substitute brown rice, or even white rice and switch out some vegetables. Though I wouldn't recommend leaving out the mushrooms. They make the pot. And here in the Northwest, we are privy to loads of fresh and local mushrooms that add a much richer flavor than plain old white button shrooms. I used porcini this go around.

For the cookbook, I'll also keep Brody's recipe intact for the family members. But I did take some good notes and have a few shortcuts that I think one would be wise to follow. Like the teensy amount of leek used in the stock? I'm recommending that one use use the remaining leek in the soup. Another modification is that I recommend sauteing the onions, garlic, leek, celery and carrots in olive oil before adding the stock. I think that brings out more flavor.

We're sadly all out of our post-Thanksgiving batch. But my mom still has a quart left in her third freezer. She's lamenting that she gave too many quarts away this year. I'm fairly certain she doubles or triples the recipe because we certainly didn't have enough to share. But it's a wonderful thing to share.

Christmas Gifts for Foodies

Nancy Leson has some great gift ideas for the foodies in your lives. I wouldn't mind any of these (except the retractable fork)...especially the cooking lessons at Le Gourmand.

See here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/restaurants/2004052727_taste05.html

Not that I have any readers, even my mother (most likely gifter and best gifter I know) can't quite figure out what the blogosphere is all about.

I especially love the purse hook. I've been meaning to Google the "dangle." My friend has one of these and I've been eyeing it for weeks each time she pulls up a nearby barstool. And now Nancy tells me that there is a glitzy option: the pursehook. I'd use it for the bars in my life though, not for fine dining.

Nancy's (yes, I do feel like she's a friend even though I've never met her. I do rely on her weekly words on food and a Wednesday without her column is a sad day) article is an idea for a post of my own....with my own foodie gift ideas. I'll see if I can compile something.

Though fair warning: I'm about to enter the maelstrom of testing the family holiday recipes and am thinking of hosting a Christmas Eve gathering with Mom and Gege's menu. And that will come first in this journey.

Best Cesear in Seattle

Okay, this is not a scientific study as I don't typically order a Caesar salad when dining out and have never even considered making my own dressing (unless you count that time I watched Martha do it on TV and thought about it for a brief nanosecond).

Honestly, I'm often underwhelmed and wishing I'd spared the extra calories and ordered something a little more substantial... you know, something with spinach or other nutritious vegetables.

But last Sunday we meet friends for a bite before the latest Sonics debacle. OH MY. I am still salivating over the Caesar I tasted. Try it yourself. Head on over to Buckley's on lower Queen Anne. It's in the old Duke's spot on 1st West.

Speaking of Buckley's, word on the street has it that the chef hails from the Ruins. The Ruin's has many fine alum running the best of Seattle's dining establishments: from Le Pichet to Union.

Buckley's serves pub and comfort food... nothing too fancy, but the meals at our table were all well executed. Oh and my personal kudos goes to anyone who can correctly cook a burger medium rare. Palace Kitchen has been the only spot to date in my experience who didn't over do the temperature. Now I can Buckley's to the short list.

I loved that Caesar so much so that last night as my soup was finishing on the stove, I wanted to take the last bit of romaine lettuce from the fridge and patch together a store-ingredient based Caesar to go along with it. In my last minute bread run to the nearby QFC, I picked up a bottle of Cardini's and some croutons. It being 7:45, there was no way I was going to make dressing from scratch and I thought Cardini's would have been a passable bottled way to go. Not so.

Alas, I'll have to return to Buckley's for my new favorite salad....with pure joy I look forward to our next trip to this pub.

Did I mention the sweet potato fries?

Thanksgiving Recap

Okay, one last Thanksgiving post before we move on to new culinary adventures. Two items on our menu are headed for the family cookbook after all. And besides, we need a debrief.

Cranberries

The cranberry sauce was divine. I've been enjoying it with my turkey sandwiches for lunch ever since the big event. On the side though, not in my sandwiches. I was college when I first heard about putting cranberry sauce on turkey sandwiches. Must be an east coast thing. Regardless, it never happened in our house.

Here's a sneak peak at the cranberry sauce recipe that my mom has adapted in recent years...one can practically taste the vitamin C (in a good way):

1 lb Fresh Cranberries
1 C sugar
Juice and zest from 1 orange
Juice and zest from 1 lime
Juice and zest from 1 lemon

1. Dissolve sugar with the citrus zest and juices in a saucepan over medium heat.


2. When sugar is fully dissolved, add the cranberries, turn heat down a bit and simmer 10 minutes until the cranberries are just popping open.

Onions
These turned out okay. Last Thursday, they were a bit overwhelmed by the plethora of other eats. Besides, Kelly's creamed onions were to die for. Though on their own as leftovers, they've been scrumptious. I just finished the last of them tonight.

I ended up making them in advance just as Mom suggested. I got to the part in the recipe before they are cooked for 1 1/2 hours and need to be basted every 15-20 minutes. I knew I didn't have the heart to spend all that time basting onions with guests in our small house.

Pies
Pie pastry for the pumpkin pie was made from scratch via Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. But I got a great tip from the Splendid Table episode that I listened to the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Lynne Rossetto Kasper said that pastry comes together best when the ingredients (dry + fat) are frozen. Whatever the recipe, she keeps baggies of pre-measured ingredients in her freezer (and she has several on hand at all times). When the time comes for pie or tart, all you need to do is follow the rest of the recipe and add the liquids. I just love this and the pastry came out with better luck than usual. I enjoyed the process because I took my time instead of trying to force everything too quickly. It was a lot easier having taken two days off work to savor and enjoy the turkey day preparations.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and we definitely ate and drank well. My husband (the DJ) and his family like to spend time together more than they like food, which makes everything fun and stress free. It sure went by with the wink of an eye. Weeks, days and hours of preparation fly by in an afternoon. And have I mentioned the sunny Seattle weather we were blessed with for most of last week?

Side Dishes from Sisters In-Law

My sister in-law Kelly made the most fabulous side dishes for Thanksgiving. YUM, they were my favorites of the day: Brussel Sprouts and Creamed Onions.

Sisters in-law must be known for their onions. Mom's onions come from her sister in-law, Gege. I was convinced that my other aunt had a creamed recipe, but turns out her onions are one and the same as Gege's. Then my sister in-law shows up with the creamed onions. They were delish! Turns out the recipe is from Epicurous and you can find it here: GRATINEED MUSTARD CREAMED ONIONS. A note from Kelly: "it's a little heavy on the mustard; cut back a bit."

And then there were her bright chartreuse brussel sprouts, that was I was convinced had been blanched first to retain the vibrant color. Not according to their source, also Epicurious. BRUSSELS SPROUT HASH WITH CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS are a keeper!

Is the Cooking Gene Passed Down?

My love of cooking came early on, though I really didn't start pursuing it on my own until after college. It's a shared love with my mother, so I assume it passed down through her. But in the case of my grandmother, it definitely "skipped" a generation. Mom must have picked it up from her grandmothers with whom she spent a lot of time and they certainly had more maternal instincts than my grandmother.

My grandmother was an interesting woman. She didn't cook, but somehow I have recipes that come from her for the cookbook. Maybe she farmed them out as far as the work was concerned, I dunno... will have to do some research.

Since we're on the topic of Thanksgiving and my grandmother, here's a story that has always fascinated me. Though she didn't cook, my grandmother brought the mashed potatoes....the instant kind. When she was getting older, I'd go over to her place and help her with the work of making the instant mashers the day before--Mom always whispered something about her being too weak to stir the mixture. I think it was all a ruse from my mom to have me spend some quality time with her while on trips home from college or out of state.

Gaga's instant potatoes lasted until my aunt and family moved back to town and were next up to host Thanksgiving. No way were instant mashers acceptable at her house. A concept I fully get now, but at the time it made me sad. Since my grandmother refused to make real potatoes, my aunt nixed potatoes altogether for Thanksgiving. At the time, mashed potatoes were my all time favorite food--instant or real--so this was devastating.

I loved mashed potatoes so much that one year back in the 80's, I even insisted on keeping my invite to Thanksgiving at the home of the high school sweetheart because his family was having them even though I'd dumped the day before. This was before my grandmother and her daughter-in-law had the potato war. My mom had decided to turn Thanksgiving that year into a sandwich buffet (no potatoes). I selfishly cared more about potatoes than the feelings of my ex. I don't think I even know who that girl is anymore and just thinking about that god-awful day breaks my heart.

But back to my grandmother. Ever since what I'm now calling "The Potato War," Gaga's contribution to Thanksgiving was the largest round of Brie cheese I'd ever seen. Not a bad trade off, I suppose.

Turkey Day Menu

• Cranberry Goat Cheese Spread
  with crackers
• Spiced Pecans
• Cheese Crackers
  not Lainey's recipe I'll use in the cookbook, but a close second, because I have the dough on hand
  
• 2 Herb-Rubbed Turkeys
  on 2 grills one gas, one charcoal, oh and brined overnight...
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  not an ounce of butter is used in the making of these french style pomme de terres
• Gege's Thanksgiving Onions
• Giblet Gravy
• Rummed Yams
  from my friend Liz, the most amazing yam side dish ever
• Cranberry Sauce
  also serving canned cranberry gel--I love that shit
• Pumpkin Pie
  w/ homemade whip cream, of course

The in-laws are bringing:

• More starters
• Stuffing
• Green vegetable side dish
• More pies
• Bob's lasagna (it's a tradition the 3 sisters in-law roll their eyes at, but I condone)
• Rolls
• Lots of wine (I friggin hope so)

Oh, I'm also thinking of starting the afternoon off with vodka gimlets--just to get everyone in the mood. But really because I recently read Julie Powell's book (Julie/Julia Project) and I can't stop thinking about them.

My husband's 5 siblings who live in the area and their families are joining us... And I hope my friend Cathy who is flying in from New York to meet up with her Seattle-based beau will stop by for a drink or dessert...and maybe another Seattle holiday orphan when he gets off the air at 6. we'll see.

Believe it or not, I actually wanted to cook more of the menu, being the foodie control freak that I am (thanks mom)... but that's a little too obsessive. Mom did give me a great tip when I mentioned this desire of how she handles the situation of not getting to have everything she wants for Thanksgiving...(especially when other cooks are involved and insist on items such as green bean casserole). She says the week before/after Thanksgiving, she'll cook side dishes that aren't on the menu, so she can get her taste of them. What a great idea...sort of like a slow paced food marathon of your own personal holiday treats. I never knew she did this.

WWAD?

The onion post got me thinking of a feature for the cookbook. WWAD=What Would Ann Do. Ann's my mom. For recipes that SHE would make in advance, I can add a note on how. Accompanying the note would be a WWAD icon.


Note to self: have Graphics Girl (my sister who doesn't know it yet, but she'll be my image person for the cookbook) come up with an icon for WWAD feature.

Onions

Have Gege's family onion recipe in hand. Just got off the phone with mom...who I haven't told I'm revising the cookbook project just yet. I thought the recipe was from Lainey's family, but it's the other aunt. It's probably the easiest thing I'll make for Thanksgiving, basically just putting a bunch of peeled/parboiled onions in a casserole pan, throwing over a sauce of melted butter and sugar and cooking them for as long as possible--about 1 1/2 hours. Mom and I had an interesting back and forth about making ahead and reheating. She almost over abuses the make ahead concept. What's the point of getting the oven going twice, if there isn't a lot of heavy lifting to begin with? I'll go as far as getting the onions and sauce in the pan beforehand but will wait until Thursday to put in the oven.... she didn't like that idea.

Anyway, it will be my first "official" recipe test. Sure, I've cooked many of the cookbook recipes before, but not with the eye for testing and actually writing them out the way they should (or the way I think they should) appear in a cookbook.

Thanksgiving

Still haven't started on the cookbook yet, my excuse is all the planning for Thanksgiving and installing 8 new windows. Actually, there probably aren't a lot of family T-Day recipes for the cookbook. Everything was pretty standard. I'll add my aunt's onion recipe... oh and perhaps her cheese crackers. I'll have to see if I have that onion recipe in my cookbook folder or if I need to call mom for that. In fact, I still have to dust off that cookbook folder.

My mom and my aunts (Lainey and Gege) were super pros at the holidays. Only they were allowed in the kitchen...and it's still true to this day. They zoom in like caterers, most of the work already finished, the work divided up neatly in advance. By the time we sat down for pie at the end of the night, the kitchen was immaculate. My Uncle Bill, gets kudos for helping out in this respect. He and my mom are obsessed with cleanliness and do a lot of hard work to make their homes spotless...must be the German genes.

We are hosting about 16 for Thanksgiving. After two years with NO TURKEY (criminal) and a Christmas without red meat (really? spaghetti & meatballs is less work than roasting a hunk of meat? really?), we are having 2 turkeys. TWO! One on the charcoal BBQ and one on the gas grill. And the best part is that the oven will be free.

We test drove a turkey coated with a Bobby Flay inspired rub on the Weber kettle a couple of weeks ago. It was divine. We are still eating leftovers: almost a dozen turkey sandwiches, turkey noodle soup, and the freezer is loaded with turkey stock which simmered for 10 hours, and some turkey meat that will go towards burritos later in the month.

I'll post our menu when I finalize it later today...

Committment

Commitment--it has clearly escaped me on this project. After reading several blogs and memoirs lately, I've been inspired to do some writing of my own. Curious about the whole blogging craze, wanting to know more about how I could design my own, but most importantly the desire to start working on my project have placed me in full cookbook writing and blogging gear.

Like many, my childhood memories are linked closely with cooking and food. What better way to preserve the centerpieces of family celebrations than to put them together in cookbook. Someday (perhaps in 2008), it will be the Christmas gift I give my sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. Actually, about 5 years ago, I began the process of collecting recipes and talking about the idea with my mom. On that same trip home, my now-husband proposed. I spent the next year planning our (see hon, I can say "our") wedding. Then the next year, I was busy and overwhelmed with a job I absolutely abhorred, we bought a house and moved. One thing led to another and the cookbook project was postponed.

My cookbook project interest is waxing these days (I think I've been reading too many cookbooks and books about food). The idea behind the blog is to try out my thoughts that will go between the recipes as I follow my self through the process and giving me the commitment kick in the pants I need and deserve.