Sea Creatures Beware: It's Dad's Birthday

by EP

A few weekends ago, per our family tradition, we trekked out to Blackacre to celebrate BCD Dad's birthday.  Readers may recall that when it comes to celebrating Dad (either through his birthday or for Father's Day), we always feature his favorite crustacean: LOBSTER!

This year we decided to do things a little differently.  Instead of slaughtering giant 4-lb lobsters, we incorporated lobster into a sushi/sashimi course (which also featured obscure seafood ordered from Catalina Offshore Products) and a pasta course.  Here was the menu:

Feeling Thankful

by Xani

Hello out there!  If you are still reading, thank you for sticking with us through yet another long blogging hiatus.  No excuses this time.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and if you think BCD isn't knee-deep in planning and prep already, you don't know us very well!  The turkey stock has been made, the pie dough prepped, and ridiculous ingredient and shopping lists have been circulated. It's just a small gathering this year, but because we're not feeding too many folks, we're able to mix up the menu and do things a little differently.

When you cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for only five people, the amount of food is RIDICULOUS.  We've done it the last couple years and there's just no way around it-- if you want to serve all the classic dishes (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, rolls, etc) you are going to end up with WAY too much food. The leftovers are endless.  We didn't want to do that this year.  First, we thought about skipping turkey-dinner all together and just eating giant lobsters, but I was hesitant-- I LIKE Thanksgiving dinner, and I didn't want to miss it!  Finally, we settled on an interesting concept: we decided to create a meal that you might be served if you were enjoying Thanksgiving at a five-star restaurant or resort!  No massive piles of stuffing and sweet potatoes-- everything will be refined and fancy, but still incorporate all the traditional flavors.  No family-style giant platters around the table-- each course will be individually plated and garnished.  Fun, right?  The final menu looks like this:

• Sparkling Apple Cocktail
• Amuse Bouche of Raw Local Oyster with Pomegranate Mignonette
• First course: Sweet Potato Fuji Apple Bisque with Lobster and Maple Butter Drizzle
• Salad of Mixed Greens, Apple, Bacon, Cornbread Croutons and Buttermilk-Herb Dressing
• Main Course: Turkey Thigh Roulade with Chestnut Stuffing, Irma's Potato Puree, Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Capers, Walnuts, and Anchovies, Cranberry Conserve, Gravy
• Dessert: Trio of Tartlettes- Parsnip-Buttermilk Pie, Frangipane Tart with Pears, and Pumpkin-Apple Butter Pie with Cranberry Glaze (those last two recipes are courtesy of the fabulous Bistro Poplar, where we were lucky enough to enjoy a wonderful baking demo a few weeks ago.)

I could not be more excited about this menu!  I love that we were able to bring in many traditional flavors while also including our family's favorites (oysters and lobsters-- hey, the pilgrims ate them at the first Thanksgiving!).  Plus, I bet there will still be SOME leftovers with which to make the all-important Thanksgiving Sandwich...

So for the next couple days, we hunker down at Blackacre, strap on our Crocs and aprons, and do we what we love-- cook, eat, and spend time with family.  I feel especially thankful this year for my health, my wonderful family and friends, for my job and financial stability when so many others are struggling, and for the newest additional to the family, who has already brought us so much joy:

Eddie, our 2 month old Cocker Spaniel

Wishing all of our readers and Happy and Tasty Thanksgiving.  Enjoy!

X

Birthday Weekend at Blackacre

by EP

This is going to be one of those old-school, family Sunday dinner posts that our long-time readers remember from back in the day, when the BCD parents lived closer to Baltimore, in sunny Columbia, MD.  Technically this meal was on a Saturday -- a requirement when your parents live a 2-hour drive in beach traffic away. We gathered at Blackacre to celebrate something super-important: my birthday!!  My actual birthday was at the end of July but this weekend was the first time the 5 of us could get together to celebrate at home.  Readers might remember that for birthdays in the BCD family, the birthday girl/boy gets to pick his or her favorite menu (we all know Dad's favorite meal: lobsters), and the whole family works together create a fabulous birthday meal.

Adventures in Baking: Bagels and Buttercream

by EP & X

Recently, we had the opportunity to attempt some challenging baking techniques, and whaddya know?  They turned out alright!  I think it was the combination of luck, some skill, and way too much time watching cooking shows/reading food blogs.

Experiment One: The Cake

A Grandmother's Recipe for Hamantaschen

by EP

Readers should note that the title of this post is not "MY grandmother's recipe for hamantaschen," but rather "A grandmother's recipe."  Our grandmothers didn't make hamantaschen (ruggelach is another story), so when I decided I wanted to make hamantaschen for Purim a few weeks ago, I had to find someone else's family recipe.  I found this NY Times recipe, which won me over with the author's sweet story about her grandmother and the adaptations she made to the recipe after WWII (the heaping tablespoons of lemon zest in the dough didn't hurt either).

So, while visiting the BCD parents out at Blackacre, BCD Mom and I set to making these three-pointed cookies made to resemble the hat of Haman, the bad guy in the Purim story who tried to kill all the Jews (what else is new?).

It’s Game Day at the Island Grille

by Dennis

Regular visitors to BCD know that BCD parents live on the eastern shore of Maryland, on Taylors Island, (see Facebook)  about 18 miles west of Cambridge.   Dorchester County is the largest (by area) and one of the smallest (by population) of the Maryland counties and its citizens are by and large insistent on preserving   its rural and rustic nature.   This extends to the cuisine.  Although there are a few exceptions (Bistro Poplar and Clearview), fine dining is not the reason to come to Dorchester County.  On the other hand, this area abounds in the traditional eastern shore seafood delicacies and on Taylors Island one can buy, direct from the boat, the oysters and crabs that will later make their way across the Bay in trucks.  And there are many local restaurants that do justice to these treasures.  But this article is not about the bounty of the sea.

Say What??

T-Day 09 Post Mortem

by Xani

While we didn't do too many (read: any) pre-Thanksgiving postings, we're about to make that all up to you. Here is a down and dirty run-down of Thanksgiving 2009 at the BCD house. It was another one for the books....

Just to set the mood of the ridiculousness, I'll start off by saying that the night BEFORE Thanksgiving, we just "whipped up" an EIGHT POUND, bone-in, wet-aged prime rib roast for dinner. And Yorkshire pudding. My Dad claimed it was necessary to "make room in the freezer." Yeah.... gluttony, here we come!

Because we had a grand total of five people at Thanksgiving this year, we decided it was imperative we have TWO turkeys, lest we might starve. OK, the actual reason for the two-turkey plan was to allow us to use two very different, and somewhat experimental, preparations (in case one failed miserably, we'd have an emergency backup turkey!)

Turkey #1
Turkey #1 (a fresh, 12-lb, additive-free bird) was prepared by awesome boyfriend and meat-smoker extraordinaire, David. He started the process many days in advance by rearranging all the contents of my fridge to accommodate the giant bucket he needed to brine the turkey. The brine included apple juice, ginger, cloves, oranges, and, of course, salt. After a 24 hour soak, it came out of the brine and air-dried for a day in the fridge. Then, into the smoker, and David worked his magic...

there's magic in that smoke...

beautiful bird!

omg, it worked!

with amazing results!! Have you ever seen a more gorgeous bird!? When we carved it it was amazingly juicy, with a sweet-and-smoky flavor. Well done David!

Turkey # 2
Turkey #2 was the smallest turkey I've ever seen. At only 7 lbs, we started calling it a "turk-lette." Not that I'm complaining, as we're already up to 19 pounds of turkey, or almost four pounds per person, if you're keeping track. It was an all-natural bird my parents picked up fresh from the Amish market in Easton, Md. They dry-brined it using a revised dry-brine method from the LA times (you might recall we used this LA Times method last year.) By including black pepper and bay in the dry-brine mixture, they infused lots of flavor into the bird. But the true genius move in the preparation of Turkey #2 came from BCD Dad. We were running out of precious fridge space on the big day, and the turkey, while small, was still taking up more than its share as it was drying out (after we removed it from the brine). Dad suggested the weather on Taylor's island that day was a perfect "mock fridge"-- about 40 degrees, dry, and 35 knot winds! Moments later #2 was perched on the deck, skin flapping in the breeze, enjoying his last moments of glory. The fridge was suddenly that much roomier, and all we had to do was make sure no one let the dog onto the deck... and keep a lookout for hungry eagles. In the end, the air-drying worked PERFECTLY-- the bird was totally transformed after a few hours out there. We roasted it up, and aside from a few timing issues (tiny turkeys cook WAY fast, who knew?), it came out with super-crispy skin, and moist, flavorful meat. Success!

fly, turkey, fly!

into the great blue yonder...

Dad's hand for scale

Turkey was clearly the star of the show, but we had plenty (and I mean plenty) of other great dishes. Our family starts every Thanksgiving with some traditional nibbles- crudite, blue cheese dressing, olives- and this year we added BCD Mom's fantastic chopped chicken liver, dressing it up with some pickled red onions to make a fabulous little crostini.

Alongside of the turkey, we enjoyed a lovely bacon, onion, and rye bread stuffing, goat cheese twice-baked potatoes, cranberry sauce, glazed brussels sprouts and apples in browned butter and cream, and two kinds of rolls (yeast rolls and sweet potato rolls). These were all brand-new recipes, with lots of new and interesting flavors. Maybe we'll go back to traditional recipes next year, but this year was all about trying new things!

the Thanksgiving plate-- never a pretty sight

The rolls were from a local vendor, but everything else we cranked out from scratch over a day or so before Thanksgiving. And they were all big successes! I especially liked the stuffing and the cranberry (which had a very deep, spicy flavor to it), but the brussels were SO rich and delicious... and who doesn't like a twice bakes potato?? No friend of mine! What can I say, I liked it all!

The sweet finale was a sweet-potato pie with marshmallow meringue. I was making sweet potato pie for the first time and little worried-- first, that it might not come together correctly, and second, even if it did, that I might not like it (I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie). Turns out I didn't need to worry on either front-- it was delicious. Buttery graham cracker crust, rich, sweet, and earthy filling, and marshmallow-y soft topping. YUM!

Another delicious Thanksgiving has come and gone, and even the leftovers are dwindling (ok, that part is only partly true- still LOTS of turkey in the fridge). Guess that means its time to start planning yummy holiday meals. Plus, EP and I have a super-special, like, once-in-a-lifetime experience coming up very soon that will MOST DEFINITELY be a blog post. Coming soon...

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and celebrated all you have to be thankful for. I know I did!

X

update/P.S. OMG, I forgot the gravy! After a life-long struggle (?) to create a delicious, rich gravy, this year, I finally achieved my goal. The secret? Make turkey stock a day or two BEFORE Thanksgiving. To make the stock, we roasted up some turkey wings until they were nice and brown, then threw them in a pot and barely simmered them for about 6 hours. Then added carrot, celery stalk, onion, garlic, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. An hour later, strained, cooled and chilled. On Thanksgiving, I added this glorious stock to a roux made from 50% chicken fat, 50% butter, and flour, and voila! Gorgeous gravy. A drop of apple cider vinegar was the perfect finishing touch.

Blackacre Blowout!

by Erin and Xani



Last weekend we finally had our long-awaited Housewarming for Blackacre! Disguised as a Labor Day party, we were able to get lots of our friends and a few family (and near-family) members out to the shore to eat, drink, swim, and bask in the sun.

As is typical for the BCD family, we started planning this shindig weeks - nay, months? - before the big day. Of course the party had to be elaborately themed, and BCD Dad thought a South of France them would be most appropriate considering the surroundings. We did a lot of menu research and had several family conference calls (yes, seriously) to plan the party.

Finally, we decided on a menu:

• Chilled zucchini soup with arugula oil


• Gruyere and caramelized onion tart


• Mediterranean relish with pita chips


• Open faced ratatouille sandwiches


• Ham, gruyere, and apple sandwiches


• Watermelon and feta salad


• Green bean and tomato salad with herbs
  
• Fresh fruit


• Olives and cornichons
  

We had a great time putting this menu together and cooking everything throughout the weekend. Some of the recipes are old favorites (e.g., mediterranean relish, ham/gruyere/apple sandwich) while others were new for us. In either case, we did many, MANY calculations to determine how much of each dish we should make. We were expecting around 80 people for a lunchtime party, so we knew people were going to eat and drink a lot, we just weren't sure how much. Let's just say we spent a decent amount of time calculating how many ounces of watermelon we would get out of a 10lb watermelon for the watermelon/feta salad, and calculators and pi were involved. Mmm pi....

Once we had finally determined how much of each dish to make, we got to cookin'. Xani was in charge of the Gruyere and Caramelized Onion Tart. She is a master at making pie dough (just like our Grandma Irma!) and uses a special rolling out technique that gives the dough a puff pastry-like quality when baked. When paired with uber-caramelized onions, shredded gruyere, and a bit of dijon mustard, the tart was one of the major hits of the party! SO delicious with wonderfully strong flavors.

BCD Dad had the task of cararmelizing the onions until they were practically onion jam. Here is a photo montage:

Ta da!

Erin made the mediterranean relish (we calculated that we should make SEVEN times the recipe - we were a little conservative, meaning we ended up with mucho leftovers), a classic in our hors d'oeuvres arsenal. It was a hit, as usual!

BCD Mom was in charge of the chilled zucchini soup, which was surprisingly good considering it was VEGAN. We served the soup in little dixie cups so people could have a 1-2 sip serving, as opposed to serving the soup in bowls, and we kept the soup cold by putting the tray of cups in a hotel pan filled with ice. The system worked beautifully! We wanted to add a no-fuss garnish to the soup (meaning easy to be eaten in one sip), so we made an arugula oil to put on top via squeeze bottle. Normal! In addition, we made some delicious homemade croutons that guests could add if they wanted.

Zo much zucchini

The two sandwiches were hits as well. We wanted to serve a vegetarian "main dish" and ratatouille seemed like the perfect dish. Instead of making ratatouille sandwiches, which we feared would get soggy over time, we opted for an "open-face" format where we served toasted slices of baguette that had been drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper, and guests could compose their own sandwiches. We were told that it was some of the best ratatouille our guests had ever had!

The ham and gruyere sandwich was a repeat from our Bastille Day party back in '05 (pre-blog!). The sandwich includes ham, sliced gruyere, and sliced golden delicious apples on baguette, with a sour cream-bleu cheese spread. A-mazing. Xani had the cute idea to leave the butcher paper on the outside of each sandwich, so it was like the sandwich was from a bistro!

Our two salads were delicious and refreshing. The green bean-tomato salad used lots of fresh herbs and a simple vinaigrette.

Xani made up the recipe for the watermelon-feta salad, which includes only 4 ingredients: watermelon, feta cheese, mint, and black pepper. Yum!

In addition to everything, we served a bowl of fresh stone fruit from Emily's, the farmstand down the road (and by "down the road," I mean 20 minutes away), a plate of olives and cornichon, and peanuts in the shell.

As for booze, we served a chilled Rosé (Costiére de Nimes), and we got a keg of Stella Artois. We also had the fixings for a campari cocktail (campari, soda, twist of lemon). Many drinks were drank :)

We did not do a dessert (except the fresh fruit) because we told our friends if they wanted to bring something, bring a dessert - and they did! We had many yummy desserts on hand from friends including Emily, who made raspberry and chocolate macarons from scratch!



As you can tell from the pictures, in addition to all the cooking we did, we also had red, white, and blue decorations, French music (including but not limited to Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier, Carla Bruni, Charles Trenet, and Brigitte Bardot) and we OF COURSE made signs for the party. Dad bought some plastic menu holders for us so we printed out the signs (in French and English) and then decorated with red and blue stickers of all shapes and sizes. We may or may not have spent half an hour looking for appropriate stickers in the craft store (esp. the sale bins - only one dollar!).

In addition to lots of eating and drinking, our friends and family enjoyed the pool, the kayak, a few friendly games of petanque (bocce ball), and many hours sitting by the Bay and enjoying the sunshine. What a great way to say goodbye to the summer! We're so glad so many of our friends could make it all the way out to Blackacre (and sorry to our guests who got caught in the Bridge traffic!) - thanks everyone!

Special thanks to Michael, Cookie, and Lynn, our helpers for the day - we couldn't have had such a successful, organized party without you! And of course, a million thanks to our wonderful parents who let us throw parties at their gorgeous home. Thanks Mom and Dad! We love you!!



So long summer,

E & X

Beer + Sausage = Independence

by Erin and Xani



For the Fourth of July this year, Xani and I wanted to have a party. While throwing around ideas one weekend at Blackacre, our parents suggested that we recreate one of their fabulous parties from when they were first married (apparently throwing great parties is genetic): Sausage and Beer party. We loved the idea immediately and started a'planning.

We decided that it'd be fun to try to make our own sausages for the party, so over the Father's Day weekend, we spent an afternoon elbow-deep in pork. Xani brought her Charcuterie book by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn and we tried to follow its directions but we hit a few snags along the way and had to go off-script at some points.

Father-daughter sausage-making on Father's Day!

We decided to make three kinds of sausage: sweet Italian, hot Italian, and chorizo. Seasoning the meat was easy, it was all the steps afterwards that proved challenging. We used a pork shoulder (per the recipe) and Dad bought a brand new gigantic meat grinder. However, the meat had a lot of extra "stuff" other than pure meat and it got all caught up in the grinder. So, we tried chopping the meat up into smaller pieces by hand and then grinding it. Then we tried using the food processor to chop the meat before grinding it. Then we just used the food processor alone. In the end, the best texture came from the second method (food processor and then run it through the grinder).

Seasoned up and ready to go into the grinder



Dad chops the meat after we realized the grinder alone wouldn't cut it (ha, pardon the pun)

Before putting the meat into the sausage maker, we cooked little bits of each kind of meat to make sure the seasoning was right. They all tasted awesome, so we were glad for that at least. Then it was time to make the sausages. We got natural pork casings from a butcher in Federal Hill at the Cross Street Market (thanks Henry!) and soaked them for a few hours to get all the salt off of them (that's how they are preserved). Then we loaded the meat into the grinder and started making sausages! It was pretty easy at that point (HA - easy after hours of seasoning, chopping, and grinding meat). We made both links and large coils of sausage and froze them in preparation for the party a few weeks later.





Flash forward to a few days before July 4: we went to the farmer's market to buy lots of veggies and fruits for the party, and also to buy some back-up sausages from our favorite pork guy in case ours turned out to be terrible. We purchased some brats from him, in addition to some sage sausage. So, in the end, we had 5 flavors of sausage to serve. We were happy that almost everything we served at the party was local/organic - yay us!

We decided to serve the sausages in mini-form (approximately 2-3 inches) with mini-rolls, so people could try more than one flavor without having to commit (?) to eating an entire full-size sausage. To serve with the sausages, we made 3 delicious condiments from this Food & Wine article. We made Curried Apricot and Tomato Ketchup, Quick Mustard Picalilly, and Smoky Pimento Relish.



5 kinds of sausages with the accompanying chart



Condiments!

In addition to the sausages, we served a tomato, feta, and basil salad (we made up the recipe), coleslaw with cayenne and toasted caraway seeds, and horseradish potato salad.



Lovely tomatoes



Tomato, feta, & basil salad (basil from Xani's garden!)



Horseradish potato salad



Coleslaw with Cayenne and Caraway Seeds



Side dishes and accompanying signs

We also made Old Bay popcorn for people to nosh on and we cut up a watermelon (which we served outside so people could spit their seeds on the ground -- or at each other).

For dessert, we decided to make ice cream sandwiches!! We were inspired, as always, by Ina Garten and we made her Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies which she used for ice cream sandwiches. We made a few changes, however: first, neither of us is a big white chocolate fan, so we used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead; also, we wanted the cookies to be more chewy than crispy so they wouldn't fall apart when in ice cream sandwich-form (and they wouldn't stay so solid such that they would force the ice cream to escape out the sides), so we referred to Xani's favorite book, Ratio by Michael Ruhlman, who instructed us to add more butter if you want a chewier cookie. Right, that's just what an Ina Garten recipe needs, more butter. But, we followed Ruhlman's ratio and sure enough, they came out just chewy enough.



Mmmm cookies



All paired up and ready to be made into sandwiches!

Once the cookies had baked and cooled, it was time to assemble the ice cream sandwiches. Now, this is where we differ in our cooking techniques. Erin usually does not mind getting messy in the kitchen, while Xani would prefer to keep a clean work space. Making ice cream sandwiches was, well....Xani wasn't too happy, let's put it that way. We had an assembly line where Xani would put the ice cream between two cookies, and then Erin would roll the sandwiches in red and blue sprinkles and place them in the freezer. This was a melty, sticky, crushed-sprinkles-all-over-the-floor endeavor, but we made it through. And they looked (and tasted) great!



Ice cream sandwich assembly line; note that the ice cream is on a scale so we could put the same amount in each one (nerds!)

Miraculously, for the first time in all of our years of party-throwing, we were done with everything before our friends arrived! It was great. We asked all of our friends to bring their favorite beer, and we planned to give out prizes for different categories of beer, for example: beer from furthest away, beer from closest, strongest beer, "classiest" beer (ahem, Miller High Life), most unique flavor, highest alcohol content, etc. Our friends came through and we had a grand old time and lots of delicious beers!



Food, as far as the eye could see

For contest winners, we gave out foodie tattoos, which were BAD ASS! We had a great time giving them out and I kept mine on for as long as I could. Here are some foodie tattoo pics:













After lots of eating, talking, and drinking, it was time to head up to Xani's rooftop deck, where we could watch the fireworks! We brought the ice cream sandwiches (and, let's be honest, more beer) up to the roof and watched the show on a practically perfect night for it. We may or may not have chanted "USA! USA!" at some point.



It was a great party and the food was awesome (if we do say so ourselves)! The chorizo turned out the best as far as our homemade sausages went - it had the best taste and texture. The condiments were also great - the picalilly was our favorite. It had sauerkraut, mustard, and beer in it - what could be bad? The cole slaw was really tasty, and while the potato salad was good, the horseradish we had was kind of weak so it didn't have that "punch you in the sinuses" effect we were hoping for. The tomato and feta salad was absolutely delicious and fresh and was a big hit. Everyone seemed to really like the ice cream sandwiches too.

Thanks to our guests for coming and bringing delicious beer and snacks (esp. Joy who made a delicious and beautiful 4th of July dessert!), and thanks to Mom and Dad for helping us make sausages and make a huge mess in Kitchen Stadium!

Here are a few more pics from the party:















Joy's dessert - it's nice to be friends with a pastry chef ;)

Happy sausage making and eating,

EP & X