Let Me Entertain You, Let Me Make You Smile

by EP

One of my new years resolutions was to entertain more. I have a lovely little home, I love to cook, and I love to socialize - why not combine them by entertaining friends? The problem is, when you are so used to cooking for one, as I do most days, you overlook such skills necessary for entertaining as: serving food on time, serving enough food, working in courses, talking to others while cooking/following a recipe, etc. But, the only way to get better at something is to practice, right? Of course right.

A Rose By Any Other Name

by EP

I recently had the pleasure of dining at Rose's Luxury in the Eastern Market/Barracks Row neighborhood. This place is on every top restaurant list and is the talk of the town (at least, according to my twitter feed). I had been wanting to go but in the back of my mind was skeptical - is this place really that amazing? I'm pretty snobby - maybe this place isn't all it's cracked up to be? Spoiler alert: IT IS.

During the polar vortex that brought temperatures in the area down to single digits (not to mention the wind chills), best buddies Mark and Craig and I headed down to Southeast DC. Normally the wait time is about 2 hours at Rose's, even if you get there right when they open at 5:30. Yeesh. Mark got there at 5:40 and by some polar vortex miracle, we were seated at 6:10. I was excited, to say the least. There may have been applause when we were seated. Maybe.

It's Cookie Time, It's Cookie Time

by EP

I don't know about you, but whenever cookies are coming out of the oven, I sing "It's cookie time, it's cookie time" a la the great cinematic masterpiece that is "Troop Beverly Hills." 

Yes, that just happened.

Speaking of cookies coming out of the oven, our ovens have been working overtime this holiday season! We have been making some great treats - both classics and what we're calling "alterna-cookies": classic cookies with a special twist, like gingersnaps made with bacon fat, or sugar cookies made with goat cheese.

Thanksgivukkah 2013: Once in a Lifetime

by EP & Xani

You may have heard that this year, for the first time since 1899, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped. This rare occurrence was given an adorable name: Thanksgivukkah.

We decided to embrace this special occasion and convergence of two of our favorite holidays and create a fabulous menu, if we do say so ourselves. Although there won't be another Thanksgivukkah for a long time to come (some say 70,000 years!), we spent countless hours researching and preparing for this day, and we wanted to document this wonderful meal with friends and family.

Here was the menu:

24 Hours in the City of Brotherly Love

by EP

A few weekends ago I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Annie at her home in Philadelphia, PA. You might remember her from our Adventures in St. Louis a few years ago. Not only is Philly a great historic town with fanatical sports fans and a pretty killer food scene -- it also happens to be my birthplace. Woot! We celebrated my big 3-0 in Philly last summer and had a totally fabulous time. (I still count our meal at Zahav as one of the best in my whole life. Yes it's that good.)

I was pretty pumped to visit Annie, her husband Chet, and their baby James for a short but fun-filled visit. I don't like showing up places empty-handed so I brought a small sweet treat to Annie and family: Mexican-Spiced Hot Fudge. Blog and recipe to be posted soon!

Jerusalem Fever

by EP

Ever since the Internet became a part of our daily lives (literally almost every second thereof!), people who love to cook have been turning away from cookbooks and instead searching for recipes on blogs and websites from Food Network, Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Food & Wine, America's Test Kitchen (subscription required), etc. I certainly do lots of research for recipes online and find that generally these are reliable. And unlike comments on most articles on the Interwebs, comments on recipes online can be incredibly helpful in determining if a recipe works or doesn't, if some ingredient amounts need tweaking, and so on.

BUT, I still love my cookbooks. I love sitting at my kitchen table, or around my parents' table at Blackacre, thumbing through cookbooks and marking recipes to try. Books sit quietly in my kitchen and present the recipe as I cook; they don't "go dark" and require a clean finger to illuminate the recipe. Splatters and grease-stains on books are badges of honor; on a phone or iPad they mean trouble.

A Treat by Any Other Name...

by Xani

Crisp Rice Treats.  You know what I'm talking about?  The treat that's been around for generations, requires 3 ingredients, and no baking?  Yeah, you know what I'm getting at.  Now, I don't really think the Kellogg legal team is going to come my way to shut down BCD just because I co-opt their product name incorrectly (and without permission).  But in this case I admit to using knock-off, Harris Teeter brand crisp rice cereal, and I'm proud of it!  The end result was a special, unique version of the crispy marshmallow bars, made for a very special cause!

The Cook's Treats

by EP & Xani

When you think of the flavors of Thanksgiving, you might think of rich gravy, tart cranberries, juicy turkey, brussels sprouts (with bacon, if you're doing it right), and sweet pies topped with whipped cream. We, on the other hand, identify Thanksgiving with one particular "taste memory": turkey tails.  Also known as the Pope's Nose. (Sorry, Benedict...you're outta here anyway.).

"Turkey tails? What the...?", we hear you cry. Well, something has to hold up all that plumage!

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:

A Chocolate-y Guest Post!

by the fabulous Stef AKA Motherocker AKA our cousin!

Like a bolt from the blue I got the message in my inbox from component X of team BCD. Xani had tix to Gourmet Walks ULTRA Chocolate tour in downtown San Francisco, but had a change of plans at the last minute. Would I be able to step in and fill her shoes? Three hours of walking around downtown SF that started with a martini and ended with a wine tasting and was filled with all manner of high-quality chocolate tasting in betwixt. It was a tall order, but I was up for the challenge.

 

Our journey began at the luxurious Le Meridien hotel. Our guide, Ahmet Aydogan (weekday photographer, weekend chocolate expert) graciously found my companion and I wandering the lobby and ushered us to the meeting spot. We were soon joined by the rest of our fellow tourists. As we waited (and waited, and waited) for our first tasting of the day, Ahmet gave us the run-down on how the afternoon would progress and then launched into an interesting and informative chocolate history lesson. I won a chocolate for guessing that the Mayans were the first to discover chocolate’s aphrodisiac qualities! But I had no idea that chocolate beverage houses existed before coffee or tea establishments in Europe, although they served a very different beverage than what we are now accustomed to. Apparently there was a thick layer of grease on top as they hadn’t figured out how to separate out the cocoa butter. But once that happened it was only short distance to the invention of chocolate as a confection. We learned that chocolate at its’ most basic consists of only 3 ingredients, chocolate, cocoa butter and sugar. Varying the amounts of the ingredients is what gives each product it’s unique flavor. Poor Ahmet was nearly done with his talk by the time the hotel bar finally had our drinks ready- chocolate martinis! I have to say, this was the only underwhelming part of the tour for me. It was a pretty standard chocolate martini. I don’t know if it was the environment or the name of the tour but I was expecting something with a little more wow factor. At least jazz up your presentation by lining the rim Le Meridien!

San Francisco Treats, Day 1: Tacos, Ice Cream, & Fancy Booze

by EP

In keeping with our slacker theme, here I am, writing about a trip I went on over a month ago.  But, the fact that I still remember almost every bite with fondness just goes to show you what a great, tasty trip it was!

Last month I visited one of my best friends, Rachel (who readers might remember from such adventures as Paris and my many visits to DC), who recently moved back to her home town of San Francisco.  We had a packed visit and some truly outstanding meals.  I can't thank her enough for taking me to such wonderful places!

Let's get to the highlight reel:

Guacamole!  Almost as good as mine :)

Day 1 gets its own post because we had so many yummy treats packed into one day.  

Just passing through? A guide to Baltimore eats.

by EP & X


Just passing through Baltimore and looking for something good to eat?  Or a local looking for some new places to try? We've put together this list of great Baltimore eats, some of which you may have heard of or seen on Food Network/Cooking Channel, and some of which you may have no clue about.  That's where we come in: let us be your guide to Charm City noms!

Below is a hodge-podge list of places to check out, ranging from low-brow street food to high-end local and sustainable cuisine.  The list is by no means exclusive and we should probably plan to do a Part II for all the great places we're forgetting.  But until then, check out this list, grab a fork, and get ready to dive into Baltimore's finest eats:

The SHOW Must Go On...

by  EP

BIG NEWS!  We have been invited to participate in a live variety show called SHOW Baltimore!  The event is this Wednesday, March 7 from 7-9 at the Wind Up Space in Baltimore (North Ave area, right across the way from Joe Squared Pizza....mmm).  There is no charge to get in, but if you want to come, save your lunch money for booze - there's a bar and we encourage you to use it.

Here's the snazzy poster for the event:

And here's a blog post by one of the producers, which gives more info on the other acts: http://mobtownblues.com/2012/02/29/show-2-coming-up-on-march-7/

We are so honored and excited for the opportunity to talk a little bit about our blog (which is almost 5 YEARS old if you can believe it) and give some entertaining tips. 

There may or may not be sweet treats for audience members...I can reveal nothing.

Cheers to a great SHOW,
EP & X

Is that a baby in my cake or are you just happy to see me?

by EP & X

Xani and I have been cooking for a long time.  Almost our entire lives.  And we feel pretty confident in our ability to pick a great recipe (or make one up), execute it, navigate around any snafus, and serve it with a smile.  In recent years, we have delved more deeply into the more complicated but arguably more glamorous cousin of cooking: baking.  Xani has been baking breads a lot recently (remember her birthday brunch??), but I am more of a cookie girl.  Give me a party and I'll give you some cookies/bars/treats of some sort.  Maybe this is the only reason I get invited to parties...?

As you might recall, a few weeks ago it was Mardi Gras down in New Orleans, for which we have a great affinity.  I told Xani I wanted to make a King Cake, the traditional sweet danish-like cake associated with Mardi Gras, as a baking adventure.  In truth, I had never had a homemade, authentic King Cake myself - I had only had crappy grocery store versions when I was visiting the New Orleans area to do post-Katrina rebuilding projects.  I wanted a taste of New Orleans and I figured we could handle the semi-complicated task.

Chicago Noms, Part 1: A Girl, A Goat, and 22 Bottles

by EP

At the end of January, 15 people came together in Chicago - yes, Chicago in January - to celebrate a special friend's 30th birthday.  That friend is my dear friend from college, Craig, who you might remember from such posts as this and this.  I was so pleased and honored to be invited to this event, a "destination" birthday party in a fabulous city with an amazing and flourishing food scene.  I had been to Chicago once before back in '04 for a chilly "spring break" road trip from St. Louis, but I was eager to get back and check out the city and the food I'd heard so much about (mostly from Twitter and Xani's various visits).

I will be blogging soon about my other eats with another buddy, Alex, but this post is dedicated to the fabulous meal and overall experience we had at Girl and the Goat, the brainchild of Chef Stephanie Izard, Top Chef Season 3 winner.*

Double Double, Toil and Trouble...

by EP & X

Last weekend, we did something we've wanted to do for a LONG time.  No, not rent a Tuscan villa for the summer (fingers crossed though!).  No, we hosted a Haunted Halloween Dinner Party!  We've been wanting to do a seated dinner for a long time, Halloween-themed or otherwise, but we always struggled with the guest list limitations associated with dinner parties.  You see, we're quite popular, and have trouble only selecting 10 or so guests to join us. (Okay, we're really not that popular, but surely between the 2 of us there are more than 10 people we want to feed and pelt with cocktails- and even squeezing 10 people into Xani's dining room was a challenge.) We figured if it went well (and it did!), we could invite a different group the next time, so we wouldn't feel so guilty. Love that Jewish guilt!

As with all of our parties, we love a theme. This year, we were inspired by a Martha Stewart recipe called Cauldron Curry, that referenced the famous "double double, toil and trouble" witches of Macbeth. We decided we would throw a Witch's Dinner! Here's the witchy recap:

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.

"Master" Recipes

by Xani

The other day I embraced an empty house, some free time, and an abundance of summer produce.  I cooked, cooked, and cooked some more, and loved every minute of it.  Later, while reflecting on all I made that day, I realized that all my creations were essentially building blocks, which could be combined with each other and other staples to create hundreds, maybe thousands of dishes.  For me, this was something of a revelation, and I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before.  When you prepare one ingredient or element for a particular recipe, be it a sauce, filling, cooked starch, whatever, there is no rule that says that all of that element must be used for just that recipe!  Why not make double the "element" and use the rest for some entirely different preparation?  Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?  Wait, maybe it doesn't.  Let me show by example:

When is a Recipe YOURS?

by Xani

As some of you may know, EP and I are lawyers.  So are our parents, and so is Dave, my boyfriend.  I mention this as background/explanation for why, on Sunday night, after many, many cocktails, and many, many pounds of lobster, the five of us were discussing not family memories, not the fate of the O's season, but copyright infringement and the intricacies of changing, using, re-printing, and selling a recipe.

This is normal for us.  In fact, Dad recently purchased this little torture device so that, when we run out of our own hypothetical questions, we now have literally thousands of legal quandaries at our fingertips.  Joy.  But this past Sunday we were discussing a real-world scenario involving pie.

You see, we had just finished an amazing, belated Father's Day dinner.  We drank champagne, slurped uni shooters (not for the faint of heart, as they included uni, ponzu, tobiko, sake, hot sauce, and a raw quail egg yolk), ate the season's first green tomatoes, pan-fried with remoulade sauce, then tucked into 12.5 pounds of lobster and my best-ever batch of onion rings.  And then, it was time for pie.

Nuts for Coconut (Oil)

by Xani

Wait, don't run away! Does the phrase "coconut oil" have you heading for the hills? It's got a bad rap. If you're a regular reader of THIS blog, you've stuck with us through pork fat, chicken fat, butter and cream galore, so don't let a little coconut oil scare you off...