Out and about, despite my stupid-Madison cold (cough, cough) and pouring rain. Lunch today at YUM! Bakery with Polly, soooo tasty. Chicken soup for the throat and the soul. With a couple of matzo balls to boot, as well as a split of coconut cake and a cup of hot tea. Oooh, all so YUMmy and good...
And tonight, to Cave Vin with John. Warm and cozy and candlelit, with perfectly 
executed brasserie fare. I opened with silky butternut squash soup, garnished with pieces of roasted parsnip; John opted for gooey, beefy French onion soup. For my main I tucked into lovely roasted chicken, served with pan juices, roasted asparagus, and the friggin' killerest pommes frites on the planet - skinny, searing hot, just-crisp, and showered with salt and crushed garlic. Right. On. Baby. John had crusty-rosy pork tenderloin with some fabulously glazy-glace reduction that I was way too obsessed with my pommes frites to even taste. Sorry. We split a hearty Chateauneuf du Pape (go for the good stuff, half-priced on Monday nights) and rolled out happy and full.
Not a bad way to start the week. Unless it's all down-hill from here...?
Moderate it: I really wanted the butternut squash ravioli, with sage butter - I've had it in past years, in the fall, and it's always fantastic. However...very rich. So I chose the roast chicken with frites (!!!) instead, so I could snag a fewwithout feeling like I'd gone completely over-the-top. All good.
YUMmy Payback
Minx Mischief at Lurcat
Dang I had a great time tonight (uh, technically last night) at Lurcat with Kim & Suz. We spiffed and spritzed up a bit and sashayed into the sparkly bar, ready for gazpacho with anchovy toasts, mini-burgers, and frites with naughty Bearnaise for dipping. Went down like buttah (Bearnaise!), baby, sooo good. Especially the brrrgrrrs, on home-made potato rolls, slathered in shallot-red wine butter, rarrr (recipe here).
Right in the middle of our cacklefest, in walked Kevin & Kristi Hykes, great to see them (haven't since the Badger Blast last fall)! No community blocks of cheese to bite into, and no podcast mic (Kevin checked under the bun of a burger, ha), just quick hellos before they joined another couple for din.
About half-way through our evening, we somehow wandered into the topic of Eddie Murphy's rendition (are there others?) of Boogie in Your Butt. Real classy, that song, and yet...20 years
after first hearing it (Cami played it for me in our freshman dorm at UW), it's still absolutely slaying me. I mean, we cried we were laughing so hard, just like the first time I heard it. Take a hot cup of Brim, fill it to the rim... Luckily, upon hopping in my car for the drive home, we were able to pull it up on my iPod. A little Lake of the Isles' scenery, little Boogie in Your Butt, and poof, we were home, just like that. Awww, it always goes too fast when I'm out with my minxes. Thanks for a great night - and deeelicious food, uff I'm stuffed - miladies!
You know, I did remember to pick up my veggie share, but I have yet to go through it. Too tired, more tomorrow on what little gems await me...
Moderate it: I figure when I dine a la Kim & Suz, I burn so many calories laughing that I don't worry so much about what I've ordered. Therefore the frites with Bearnaise. Therefore the chocolate profiteroles with salted caramel ice cream. Urgh. Hahahahaha (that's the sound of me, you know, burning more calories)...
Ah, the post-Valentine's Day aura still surrounds me, and in it, I bask. Nice Friday, NICE! Dinner at Lurcat last night was as romantic as we could have hoped for - sparkly-dim chandeliers, tables scattered with rose petals, raspberries afloat in festive flutes of champagne, ridiculously young couples sprinkled prettily hither and thither, live jazz, and a cozy window seat for Johnny and moi, private and snug. Rather ridic in its perfection, in fact, but we ate it all up - the dreamy setting and especially the hot, crispy pommes frites dipped in creamy Bearnaise (oh dear me, we way overate them and somewhat ruined our appetites...John stressed on it, I rejoiced; therein lies the difference between us, ha). But also silky mushroom soup alongside itty bitty crispy grilled cheese sandwiches. And then slices of rich, tender pot roast in a deep ruby wine sauce, with a side of roasted cauliflower to make us feel as if we'd eaten "a vegetable." And to finish, a dessert we couldn't even eat (shame!), profiteroles filled with cherry ice cream and doused in warm chocolate sauce. The only thing that really
traveled well home was the pot roast......which made a small portion of The Kill Hash for my lunch today, dang it was good.
Dinner tonight, nothing but warm, salty tortillachips, guacamole, and cold beer when I met Baseball Mom Beth (she of yesterday's lucky listen to Chef Philip on Cities 97) for a Happy Hour brewskie at McCoy's. It was packed - St. Louis Park is hoppin', who knew? Thank goodness Beer Is Food and guacamole is loaded with monounsaturated fats! (Those chips? Call 'em whole grain and forget about 'em! Hey, moderation is in the eye of the beholder, didn't you realize?)
Have a great weekend!
Dinner and a movie, pretty hard to beat. Even (or especially?) on a bitterly cold, slippery-snowy evening. John and I hit a late-afternoon showing of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the intense true story of French Elle publisher Jean-Dominic Beauby. Beauby, at the age of 42, suffered a sudden, massive "cerebral event" which left him with "locked-in syndrome" - a fully functional intellect trapped inside an immobile body. He could hear, and blink his left eye...but that's it. Dedicated therapists worked out an eye-blinking code so that he could communicate, and he eventually used it to dictate the memoir that the movie is based on. The story is far too grim and frightening to be uplifting, but it's powerful, and redemptive, and I walked out feeling a little dazed. (John loved it.)As often happens to me, the setting of the film stirred cravings for the featured culture and food, in this case French. (Italian movie, Italian food. Asian movie, Asian food.
Heck, a strain of a Mexican tune conjures a hankering for margaritas and guacamole. I'm hopeless.) So off we went to our favorite little bistro, Cave Vin, for Gallic treats. To start, half-price bottles of wine on Monday nights, a particularly sweet bonus given their lovely wine list. Smokin-hot frites with crushed garlic (but of course). Plump, tender mussels bathed in a perfect lemony-garlicky broth (insert copious amounts of crusty baguette, soak briefly, sigh deeply). A crispy-roasted chicken breast, with fresh herbs stuffed under the skin, served alongside simple sauteed vegetables. A few decadent bites of a warm chocolate pot-de-creme. And with sips of strong coffee to finish, and chats with the tables on either side of us (we happened to know both parties, random), we rolled on out into the snowy cold, (temporarily) blissfully unaware of its nasty bite given the protective presence of warm food and drink. Oooh, bon, bon, bon. Date Night!And tonight, more French fabulousness, this time with Stu The Wine Genius and his lovely wife Debbie. Stu belongs
to the Twin Cities' chapter of a Bordeaux wine-enthusiasts group (wine frat!) called the Commanderie de Bordeaux. Commanderie members host dinners and wine tastings, called parlements, and occasionally invite guests to attend. Tonight's parlement will feature the wines of Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte. Tonight's guest list will include - moi! John was invited too, but he wussed out because he gets too overwhelmed by multi-course, multi-taste dinners. I surprisingly (har) dig them wildly and can't wait. Yay! I'll check in with the details tomorrow.Until then, stay warm, my friends!
La Belle Vie! Joyeux Anniversaire a moi! Well, almost. As usual, the celebration - of, in this case, the end of my 41st year - involves more than one day. Which I love! Yeah, it rather sucks to have a birthday so close to Christmas...the combo Christmas/birthday gift totally bites - and yet, it does somehow stretch out the celebration into something long, slow, and mellow, and I can't one bit complain about that.So tonight, two days early, the celebration began in
earnest, in the stunningly elegant bar at La Belle Vie, just John and me, YES! Bling (including a beautiful new bracelet from Suz), frites (it's no birthday sans frites), langoustines (fried shrimps), vino (Cote de Rhone), and chocolat (in several forms, with a lovely birthday message!) made for a fabulous beginning to this all-about-my-birthday (wink) weekend.Stay tuned... I plan to celebrate quietly, yet nicely...
Cave Vin, meaning "wine cellar" in French (actually, cave à vin means wine cellar, but we won't be picky), is a lovely little spot to sip wine and nosh on comfy bistro food. How do I know? Well, I did both last night, with John (after seeing Atonement, which IMHO isn't as good as everyone is raving, and doesn't hold a candle to the gut-wrenching book), both of us freezing and in need of sustenance. We used to frequent Cave Vin on a pretty regular basis, but it kinda sorta fell out of our repertoire. Not sure why. But our on-a-whim reprieve made it quite perfect to return to last night. We stumbled into the dimly candlelit (just the way I like
it), crowded, nicely noisy room and felt like we'd come home. If you go, absolutely order the garlic pommes frites. Smokin' hot & crisp & skinny, showered with salt and crushed fresh garlic, they're crazy-delicious. (And if you plan to smooch afterward, don't worry - just both eat lots, in effect canceling out your aromatic breath. Breaths. Voila.)In fact, if you're ever in the post-movie position of wanting wine + hot, crispy frites, which happens to me, well, every time I go to a movie, put Cave Vin on your list. (Along with the bars of La Belle Vie, The Capital Grille, Cafe Lurcat, Mission American, Cafe Barbette, Bacio...yep, I've downed a few frites in my day...not one bit moderate, but OMG taaaasty!)
Popovers! I love them so dangerously (as a delicious delivery vehicle for Hope Creamery butter) that I don't let myself make them very often. But tonight, aka Crazy Wednesday, when I needed a quick, hot something to go with a quick, hot soup for the whole fam... Eggy, buttery popovers, yep. So easy. So perfect. To die.Although I'm almost still full from dinner last night - a gift certificate extravaganza at The Capital Grille, courtesy of Ana Scofield, for Debbie Williams and...lucky me! It was very sweet of Ana to share her bounty with us, and oh boy, did we do it up. Wine and king crab with drawn butter and huge, juicy steaks (that we could hardly put a dent in) and killericious truffle-Parmesan fries (holy fries). The place was hoppin',
quite a scene, I must say. Lots of good holiday cheer (even a table of revelers in Santa hats!), it was a perfect Holiday Ladies Dinner. Thanks Ana and Debbie!And thanks to Cooper for such a fun afternoon today - I missed him last week, but he had a great time in Maine, visiting Stacey's friend Caroline at her family's amazing home. Horses, a pot-bellied pig, dogs, beach - a postcard perfect pre-Christmas visit to one of the most beautiful places in the country. NICE! I don't know (yet!) what Stace is doing for a Christmas card this year, but this picture could do - Happy Merry Sweet Baby Cooper, awwww.
And oh! Lest I forget, have a look at the Famously Fabulous Amy Brown Christmas Cookies that we gratefully receive and devour each year. I'd offer a taste - but they were gone in mere minutes. All that hard work! All that loving care! And John and I ate them so inelegantly, I was rather ashamed - which is actually a compliment, a testament to how amazingly irresistible they are.Dangerous time of year for the waistline, very dangerous...
I’m Stephanie Meyer. If you're looking for fresh, delicious food to share with those you love - welcome! In addition to the recipes you'll find here, I post Tuesday recipes at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly magazine with a focus on local, seasonal ingredients. I also cook and take photos for Andrew Zimmern's Kitchen Adventures/Food & Wine magazine, post gluten-free recipes at Stuffed Pepper, cook with food photographer Susan Powers for Shooting the Kitchen, and organize the Minnesota Food Bloggers. Let’s eat!
