Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 35

Espagnole Sauce: My Culinary Everest

[My friend Diana Fithian--playwright and home cook extraordinaire--kicks off Day 2 of Sauce Week with this epic post about one of the world's most difficult and important sauces. Take it away, Diana!]

When Adam asked if Iʼd like to contribute to Sauce Week, and sent a list of sauces to choose from, there was one that jumped out at me right away: Espagnole Sauce, arguably the most time-consuming of the French mother sauces and the precursor to demi-glace. Itʼs part recipe, part exercise in masochism – first you make stock, then you make a brown sauce with the stock, then you reduce that sauce with more stock until you get demi-glace, and only then do you use the resulting demi-glace to make a handful of “small” sauces by combining it with other ingredients like mushrooms and wine.

I told Adam to sign me up.

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Rib-Eye Steak with Sauce Béarnaise

A few months ago, when I first conceived of Sauce Week, I set out to make a dinner for myself that promised to be so outrageously decadent, I’d have to close my blinds before eating the first forkful. The premise was pretty basic–steak and potatoes–with one key difference. I was going to drench the whole thing in that most indulgent of French sauces, a sauce that contains more butter than most people eat in a month, yet a sauce so rich and sultry it’s pretty much the height of sophistication and elegance: I’m talking, of course, about Sauce Béarnaise.

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Welcome To Sauce Week

A few months ago, I had an idea. “What if I devoted a whole week on my blog to sauces? Just posts about all different kinds of sauces and I enlisted my friends to make some sauces and I also made some sauces and, you know, it was just a whole week of sauces.” So I e-mailed my friends and some of them were like “you’re weird” but others were like, “Oooh, sign me up!” I also e-mailed a few chefs too, to ask for their favorite sauce recipes. And that’s how Sauce Week came together, a week that’s all about that most fundamental, classical part of cooking: sauce. So get your sauce-scraping spoons ready, it’s going to get saucy! Welcome to Sauce Week.

Sauce Week Is Coming

Soup Dumplings at Din Tai Fung

My shame was very great indeed. Din Tai Fung, the world famous emporium of soup dumplings, had opened up at the Americana Mall literally ten minutes from where we live in Atwater Village. I’d seen the sign go up when I was Christmas shopping, and–a few weeks later–I saw life through the windows. But any time I’d plead, “Soup dumplings? Din Tai Fung?” to Craig, there’d be some reason we couldn’t go. I was getting restless. I had to try it. So, right before Sundance, when Craig was still picking out his premiere outfit, I agreed to help him find a pair of shoes at the Americana if he’d agree to eat lunch with me at Din Tai Fung. A deal was struck. Soup dumplings would be mine.

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A French Feast for Craig’s Birthday (And The Best Soup I’ve Ever Made)

This year, on Craig’s birthday, I had a revelation. My usual instinct to take him out to a fancy dinner on the big day (a tradition that began with an epic meal at Per Se back in 2008) really has nothing to do with Craig’s interests or wants and everything to do with my own. Who likes fancy dinners? I do, not Craig. So this year I asked him point blank if he wanted to go out for a fancy dinner on the occasion and he said he’d actually like it better if I made the dinner here at home. I have to admit, that was pretty flattering–given the option of Thomas Keller food or Adam Roberts food, Craig picked the latter. I knew I had to make this dinner special.

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Lemony Greens on Garlicky Beans

Trader Joe’s has always been a mystery to me. People love the place, they start to cheer when one opens up in their neighborhood, but I’ve always been stumped by what to buy there. I’ve done well with trail mix (because it tastes more like candy), and it’s nice to get a decent bottle of wine for not a lot of money. But until yesterday, I’d never made a dinner from Trader Joe’s ingredients that I’d be eager to make again. Yet there I was–there’s one downstairs from my gym–and I wanted to make a healthy dinner so I bought a can of white beans (a pretty safe purchase), a bag of cruciferous vegetables (including kale), a lemon and a bottle of white wine. And the dinner that I made was so stupendous, I’ve just gotta tell you about it.

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Gone to Greenville: Pomegranate, Swamp Rabbit Cafe, Makin’ Moonshine, Fried Green Tomatoes, Henry’s Smokehouse, Brewery 85 and High Cotton

In case you were driving from Columbia, South Carolina to Greenville last Tuesday, that was me blasting the original Broadway cast recording of RENT and singing along at the top of my lungs. It was really a mismatched pairing of sound and scenery–gospel churches, religious bumper stickers–but that juxtaposition was what made it so delightful. And turns out that juxtaposition made perfect sense for my first stop when I arrived in Greenville: a Persian restaurant–yes, a Persian restaurant–called Pomegranate.

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Skipping Across South Carolina: Hominy Grill, Terra, City Roots and Southern Belly BBQ

Last we spoke, I was living it up in Charleston, pigging out at FIG and Husk and Butcher and Bee. The next morning, I was supposed to leave right away for Columbia but felt the pull of the one place I hadn’t managed to squeeze in over the previous 48 hours: Hominy Grill. And Hominy Grill serves breakfast. Surely, I could race over there and shovel some food down my throat before leaving for Columbia? Reader, that’s exactly what I did.

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Chowing Down in Charleston, South Carolina: FIG, The Lowcountry Oyster Festival, Butcher & Bee and Husk

“Things like that happen in Charleston.”

That’s what a woman working at a kitchen store said to me after something extraordinary happened to me right in front of her. It was one of two extraordinary events that I’m going to tell you about in this post all about my time here in one of America’s great food cities. I was brought here by South Carolina Tourism as part of a larger trip that’ll encompass Columbia and Greenville; but this post is all about my 48 hours here in Charleston.

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