THE LADY OF SHALLOTS

I will start with a confession. I don't like avocados. Yes, I am from California, and I do NOT like avocados. Ok, mash 'em up with lots of spices, lime juice, etc. and call it guacamole and we are all good. So...why I would make something with avocado for the first time now that it is winter in Massachusetts is beyond me, but this recipe from the March 2011 issue of Real Simple jumped out at me: Pollock with avocado relish and carrot puree (click link for recipe) I used these amazing carrots I bought at the Somerville Winters Farmers Market from Winter Moon Farm for the purée. Something about a mixture of kalamata olives and avocado appealed to me--I can handle avocado when it is in smaller chunks--it is the slices that trouble me. I didn't have pollock, but substituted haddock from Jordan Bros Seafood (also purchased at the Somerville Winters Farmers Market). This recipe was healthy, delicious, and colorful--and would be great for summer. I used the leftover carrot pu...

I have wanted to use a recipe from Barbara Lynch's Stir cookbook, almost as much as I've wanted to go to her restaurant, No. 9 Park . Most of the recipes aren't weeknight-type meals, but this one looked like something I could handle. I bought some great pork chops from Stillman's at the Turkey Farm at the Somerville Winter Farmers Market , along with some apples as well. I'm actually not a big fan of apples with pork chops, usually, but the caramelization did the trick here! Mmm....caramelized apples... Due to copyright, I won't give the amounts, but the ingredients are as follows: Pork Chops with Caramelized Apples, Celery, and Spiced Walnuts grapeseed or canola oil (I used grapeseed) pork chops, about 1 1/2 in thick salt and pepper Honeycrisp or Granny Smith apple (I used the latter) sugar (for caramelizing) unsalted butter (for caramelizing) chopped fresh thyme celery stalks, sliced very thinly on the diagonal whole parsley leaves (1/4 cup...quite a lot--...

I own many cookbooks. I enjoy looking through them and I'm a sucker for good food photography. However, after buying flounder at last week's Somerville Winter Farmer's Market, I discovered that I have a dearth of flounder recipes. It is only since moving to New England that I've been cooking fish regularly, so I'm still sort of shy when it comes to substituting one fish for another in a recipe (ok, except for whitefishes). So, I turned to The Joy of Cooking which remains one of the most inspiring cookbooks of all time and does so without the use of photographs (for me, this is saying a lot). First challenge was that the flounder is to be marinated in tarragon vinegar. No such vinegar was to be found at the store, so, I try to be resourceful: With that out of the way (I let the tarragon sit in white wine vinegar for a couple of hours until the vinegar smelled like tarragon (+ vinegar)), I could get going on the sauce. Ravigote Sauce is an adaptation of Velouté sau...

Potato-Leek Soup (The City Tavern Cookbook) and onion & garlic burrata on sunflower bread I had a lovely morning at the Farmer's Market, enjoying a chance to chat briefly with two fabulous people (hi, Alex and Claire!), and I headed straight for Jordan Bros. Fish upstairs, having enjoyed the scallops I bought last week. This week I bought some flounder (in addition to more scallops), which I will be making tomorrow night. Next to Jordan Bros. were two of my favorite Somerville companies: Taza Chocolate and Fiore di Nonno , so some 80% chocolate and Onion/Garlic burrata jumped into my bag. When I got home I realized I still had potatoes and leeks from last week's market ( Enterprise Farm ) that I never cooked, and the leeks still looked fine, so that was the priority for tonight. I wanted to make what is probably an amazing and fantastic potato leek soup from Barbara Lynch (as found in her book, Stir ), but a recipe calling for four cups of cream isn't really compat...

Somerville, MA is a great city. I love living here, and this year's new Winter Farmer's Market just added to my joy. It runs between now and March, and it has been inspiring to see people trudging out in the cold, ice and snow, to the Armory (yes, the market is inside). This past Saturday, I stocked up on locally grown leeks and potatoes, grabbed some hot Italian sausage from Stillman's , and then ventured upstairs to buy some FRESH FISH from Jordan Brothers Seafood. Yes, that's right: haddock from Gloucester, and scallops from Maine. Not frozen--fresh. When she showed me the scallops I might have cried, just a little. Oh, and I picked up a baguette, brioche, and potato bread. Scallops don't require a lot of fuss, but are easy to overcook. I pulled out my San Juan Classics Cookbook (San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest, not Puerto Rico) and went straight to the shellfish section where I found a recipe for "Sautéed Prawns or Scallops" from Thibert...

I wouldn't classify myself as a huge carnivore, but when I do eat meat, I like it to be good quality meat. I buy most of our meat at our local farmer's market which a) keeps us from eating too much meat due to the expense and b) makes me much more conscious of the meat's quality, how I cook it, etc. These pork chops come from Stillman's Farm , and they were, like everything I've ever purchased from Stillman's, absolutely amazing. So, when meat is fresh and of high quality, I tend to go for minimalist recipes that enhance the meat's own flavor (sometimes a challenge with pork). I had some fresh sage that I picked up at the Farmer's Market, and so a little googling brought me to Josh Friedland's wonderful blog, The Food Section . Friedland summarized the recipe for the pork chops from Suzanne Dunaway's Rome at Home . I followed his directions with one tiny addition: white wine in addition to the lemon juice. I did need more liquid after the fi...

I currently have us on a "meat every-other-day" plan, but my low blood sugar requires protein in almost every meal. So...I am working very hard to find ways to incorporate beans into our diet. I'm not a big fan of beans (kidney, pinto, black-eyed, lima, you name it). I tend to tolerate them, and really only enjoy black beans in Mexican food. But in my quest for optimal health, it seems practical to find a way to eat them more often. This recipe comes from one of my most-used and most-loved cookbooks, The Cook's Encyclopedia of Thirty Minute Cooking by Jenni Fleetwood. I don't really care about the "thirty minute" part (usually), but I love the variety and ease of the recipes. In addition to blanched green beans (which I love), mixed canned beans (I used pintos and black beans), celery, onion (I used red), tomatoes, fresh parsley, I also tossed in a can of whole kernel corn....mostly for color, but I really liked the little bit of sweetness that it adde...