Brigidc won the contest for Your Best Autumn Salad with Arugula, Pear, and Goat Cheese Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette.
TasteFood won the contest for Your Best Sweet Potato Recipe with Southwestern Spiced Sweet Potato Fries with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream.
Brigidc
What is the most show-stopping dish you have ever eaten or prepared?
A Charlotte Malakoff for Julia Child's 90th Birthday celebration at Copia
What's a food you really don'tlike?
(get ready to clutch your pearls, foodies....) sushi (it's the seaweed)
Describe a restaurant meal that stands out in your memory.
At Emeril's in New Orleans, before the Food Network, when it was his only restaurant. My roommate and I were doing externships in other New Orleans restaurants and our parents had come to visit. We got our first taste of getting "hooked up" with complimentary tastes, etc. The food was spectacular--the first time I ate wild salmon, fiddleheads and morel mushrooms.
What's a piece of kitchen equipment you're dying to own?
A maid/dishwasher
What was the menu for the last dinner party you hosted?
Oktoberfest: braised red cabbage, bratwurst, German potato salad, lots of BEER
Apron or no apron?
when I remember to put one on
What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
"Leave the gun...take the cannoli."
What would you cook if you suddenly found out friends were coming for dinner tonight?
a nice piece of halibut, seared; risotto with butternut squash, pecorino and spinach, a salad with mandarins and avocado, ice cream sandwiches with homemade chocolate chip-pecan cookies and Hagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream (I just went to the grocery store!)
You prefer to cook:
during the day
When it comes to tidying up, you usually:
Clean as I cook. the cat's not very good with an SOS pad.
TasteFood
What is the most show-stopping dish you have ever eaten or prepared?
I am lucky to have eaten lots of memorable and amazing dishes. Currently, we live near Sushi Ran in Sausalito, California. The head sushi chef, Nori Kusakabe, has won international competitions for his sushi creations. Whenever we go there (too much) we order his omakase sushi roll, which is a roll he makes on the spot with ingredients of his choosing. They are mini-architectural masterpieces, beautiful to look at, stacked and filled with fresh fish flown in daily from Tokyo, micro-greens, roe - they are never the same. When they are presented to us, everyone in the vicinity stops eating and looks.
What's a food you really don't like?
Pigeon
Describe a restaurant meal that stands out in your memory.
A dinner at Girardet - for all the wrong reasons. I happened to live near Fredy Girardet's eponymous 3 star michelin restaurant when I lived in Switzerland. My husband and I often ate out, venturing into the nearby French countryside or to further flung auberges and hotels for special occasions, yet never reserved a table at Girardet. So I decided one year to reserve a table as a surprise for my husband's birthday, and made the reservations 3 months in advance. Then I became pregnant with my son, and our dinner at Girardet fell right in the middle of the first trimester when I was experiencing severe morning (and afternoon and evening) sickness. Food was not my friend. But we had the reservation and off we went. The set menu featured game, since my husband's birthday falls during La Chasse (hunting season.) I was served pigeon (see above) and could hardly stomach any of the other dishes due to my general nausea or partake in a bottle of wine. My husband loved his meal.
What's a piece of kitchen equipment you're dying to own?
Does a new espresso machine count?
What was the menu for the last dinner party you hosted?
Radishes and baby heirloom carrots with sea salt; olives.
Arugula salad with honey roasted figs and prosciutto crisps.
Roasted halibut on butternut squash planks with saffron mayonnaise and chorizo, served in a wide bowl with roasted pepper and tomato coulis and a garlic crouton.
Epoisses cheese.
Tarte Tatin with Calvados spiked whipped cream.
And our friends brought an exquisite Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
Apron or no apron?
No apron. Fortunately, many of my clothes are black.
What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
Babette's Feast has to be the one, especially since my husband is Danish. I love the concept of communicating and showing gratitude through food, which is a universal language. When we lived in Copenhagen, we hosted my father-in-law's 80th birthday. I created the menu, cooked and served the food for the 50 guests, many of whom I did not know. While it wasn't comparable to Babette's Feast, it was my way to express my feelings towards my Danish family (and avoid having to stand up and give a toast in Danish in front of a crowd of strangers!)
What would you cook if you suddenly found out friends were coming for dinner tonight?
Turn my day-old baguette into crostini and top with something simple from the vegetable drawer - tomatoes or a pesto from fresh herbs. Followed by roasted chicken(s), smashed potatoes with garlic, mixed seasonal greens with balsamic vinaigrette. Followed by cheese. And an apple galette.
You prefer to cook:
During the day or just before the meal. I am eating what I cook at night.
When it comes to tidying up:
I clean as I cook, because I can't work in a mess, and my husband always helps to clean after dinner.
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