Mme Diat: More of the Thanksgiving Marathon

A week later, another Thanksgiving. This time, I was heading over to my aunt's home in Palos. This time around, I wasn't expected to cook anything so I brought a few wine selections instead. I ended up with Gabbiano Chianti and Fat Bastard Chardonnay. As someone who isn't always a fan of white wines, I really have to say I enjoyed the Fat Bastard. I bought it because I knew my extended family, being Italian, and my immediate family, being German, Lithuanian & Bohemian, would appreciate the wine choice.

Even though I didn't cook a dish for my second Thanksgiving, I wanted to write about it because for the first time, I tried a brined turkey. I have to be honest, maybe it was the way it was cooked, but I was not impressed. The turkey seemed dryer than normal and there was really nothing special that would make me recommend it to anyone. Just to be sure, I am planning on brining my own turkey sometime soon. I've heard such good things and I don't want to give up on it just yet.

Now onto my final, and real marathon, Thanksgiving. Since my whole immediate family couldn't be at the "Official Family Thanksgiving" it was declared that we would have our own small meal the next weekend. I was absolutely turkey-ed out at this point, but I offered to make the dinner.

The Menu:
Turkey
Southern Sweet Potatoes [the same ones I made with Mme. Pépin]
Mashed Potatoes
Cauliflower
Peach Stuffing [Mme. Pépin's traditional contribution to the holiday meal]
Sausage Stuffing [a manlier alternative for the growing Diat boys]
Cranberries w/Pear [also a Mme. Pépin favorite]
Apple Pie

Since it was rainy that weekend, grilling the bird was out of the question. I opted for a nice roasted turkey with a vegetable & herb seasoning mixed with butter for under the skin and oranges stuffed inside for moisture and added flavor. The mashed potatoes were just the general variety, milk and seasonings for flavor. The cauliflower was absolutely fantastic. I was torn on whether or not I wanted to make it with bread crumbs, a family favorite, or baked with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. I opted to bake the veggie and was not disappointed. It's such a great way to spice up an otherwise boring vegetable.

For my dessert, I decided to go the classic pie route. I had been wanting to try my hand at pie crust and fruit pie for some time and I thought that my third Thanksgiving was as good a time as any. The only thing that I have to say was that I followed the recipe exactly, and wound up with entirely too many apples. I could have made about 3.5 pies with that recipe. Take a look at your recipes before hand an if 12 apples sounds a little intense, it probably is. Scale back some of the other seasonings and start with about 4-5 apples instead. I presume that would have been more than enough for my pie.

All in all, every meal was a success. A friend who had attended all 3 holidays with me remarked that my final masterpiece was the best of the 3. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and leftovers were gone within a week. My only request after all of it: that we not have turkey anywhere near our Christmas menu.

Mme. Diat: Onion Soup Gratinée

My body has hated me from day one and thus tries incessantly to overtake me. I have acid reflux that normally dictates it's unwise to eat onions; so I traditionally steer clear. However, as a soup, cheese, and bread lover, if French Onion Soup is on the menu, I am there. Last night, Mme. Pépin and I [with the assistance of my younger and much burlier brother] took our first venture into Chez Jacques with an Onion Soup Gratinée.

Aside from eating at almost 9 p.m., the dinner was absolutely delicious. In my mind, I had envisioned a product vaguely reminiscent of the Thanksgiving Cheese Soup that ended up, well, gray. For those of us not color blind, we realize that cheese should never take on a gray hue.

For this gratinée,Chez Jacques called for the onions to be thinly sliced and then browned. Fearing that we would get large, uncooked, onion chunks [see Thanksgiving Cheese Soup fears], I suggested that we grate the vegetable instead. Aside from causing me to physically weep while working, the idea turned out well. Though I can see why Chez Jacques asks that you slice them. Grating the onions makes the bits quite small and they often get lost with the cooked bread. The next time I try this recipe I will remember that and, to test the consistencies, I will try slicing instead of grating.

The friend who was in charge of purchasing baguettes decided to bring one French bread baguette and one multi-grain baguette. And while I appreciate a bread with personality, I don't think you want anything other than an Italian or French baguette. Straying from those two options might lead to some awkward questions such as, "What is this seed in the soup from?" That's, more often than not, a question that you don't want to hear.

The recipe asks that you brown the bread in the oven before putting it into the broth. While I was eating, I thought about the French Onion soup that I'd come to love. The bread in every variation that I've tasted had a spongier and lighter feel. I have to wonder what we can do next time to achieve that kind of airiness in the bread. It was a tad heavy and tasted more like a mushy dumpling than the bread I had remembered.

All in all, the soup turned out fantastic. And I wouldn't at all hesitate to repeat the recipe again. Once the soup was out of the oven, it was a welcome surprise as our dinner guests were getting antsy, Mme. Pépin and I hesitantly looked at one another as we took our first bite; first recipe down, a whole book left to go.

Mme. Diat: The Why

When I was in 7th grade, I took my first job at the rectory adjacent to my school. My duties were simple, I was kitchen staff. I was meant to answer the phones and the door, take messages, serve and clean up dinner, and assist in cooking. It was during these seven years as staff at the St. Leonard rectory that I developed my passion for cuisine.

I remember working with Louise, a fiery Italian woman from the south side of Chicago, who would tell me, "a pinch of onion and a pinch of garlic. You can't go wrong with a pinch of onion and a pinch of garlic." Sitting in that kitchen with the warmth from two ovens and a stove filling the room, listening to her describe how to make the perfect soup stock or how to create her family marinara you would picture a child sitting at the feet of their grandparent. To be honest, that's how it felt. Louise taught me that cooking was more than just a cup of water combined with a pinch of salt. There was a heart and soul to each dish that you gave to the people sharing in it. She took me in as a daughter and passed onto me family recipes brought with her mother from Italy.

There comes a moment when the student must become the teacher. When I left the warm hearth of that rectory kitchen, I knew that for me, it was time.

When my best friend who, as undomesticated as she is tries- with all of her heart, presented me with a brand new cookbook and a plan, all I could do was smile. Normally, my best friend is contented with pretzels and applesauce for dinner. So when she proposed that we cook our way through Jacques Pépin's favorite recipes, I knew that there was no way I could say no. When the two of us get together, it is always an adventure and I knew that this trek into squab, tripe, clam chowder, and the delicious desert section would be no different.

Harriet Van Horne wrote, "Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." Over 10 years ago, my passion for cooking was bore out of a friendship that I will not soon forget. Today, I know that another friendship will create some dishes that will soon not be forgotten.

Mme. Pépin: Onion Soup Gratinée

The unique thing about Jacque's book is that he accompanies all of his recipes with a narrative of sorts about how that recipe fit into his life. As I was reading the narrative preceding the Onion Soup Gratinée I grew apprehensive about my abilities, culinary and equipment wise, to complete that recipe.

He writes of how his mother would prepare her version of the Onion Soup. There were crusts of cheese to break, wine and such to pour into the soup and 30 minutes worth of browning the onions. Thankfully, his recipe was slightly less complicated. Though I must have overlooked the part about needing individual soup carafes. Ah well, I had two iron pieces that I could fill as needed and that could go into the oven.

The setting I used to debut the Onion Soup was a Sunday night dinner among friends. There was going to be enough of us there that it warranted a double recipe. Everyone decided to pitch in and help in the creation of the soup. As soon as one of my friends showed up with the baguettes, the preparations began. One chopped the garlic and grated the fresh onions, which brought the whole room to tears, and is still giving me a bit of a headache, as another got the onions browning (which took an eternity-not his fault, there were a lot of onions to be browned). I cut the bread and browned it, lined the two iron pieces with it, lay the cheese on top of it, and left it to wait for the onions to finished.

A side note, last November I attempted a cheese soup, which seems very similar to what I made this evening. Except that one went horribly wrong. The onions weren't cooked enough, the base wasn't made correctly, the end product turned out... grey.

So needless to say, this time, I was making sure those onions were cooked properly. When the time came we put the onions into a pot of chicken broth along with the garlic, salt and pepper. That was a whole lot of liquid to boil, even with the lid on.

Finally, the soup was ready to be put into the bread and cheese lined iron pieces, and covered with more cheese. After 30 minutes in the oven, what emerged smelled and looked not too much unlike the photo in Jacque's book. In fact, I didn't fill the iron pieces to the brim, so my soup wasn't overflowing and making a mess as was the soup in his photo (although photographically interesting, cheese didn't sound like something fun to be scraping off of my iron pieces).

I solved the problem of not having individual carafes for everyone by using my ladle to slice the cheese into sections and made sure everyone had a bowl full of cheese/bread/soup. Aside from a few people noting that it was incredibly hot (I warned them), the overall conclusion was that it turned out very well. In fact, some people admitted to be very surprised. I must admit that I too, was a tad skeptical at first, but quite pleased with the outcome. I would definitely make that meal again.

My boyfriend's adage about the quality of my work vs the time it takes for me to complete cette work, holds very much true. Yes it turned out very well, but it took quite a while to get to that point. One down... how many more to go?

Mme. Pépin: Trip 1 to Jewel

Weather.com = sunny, upper 50's. Outside = raining. Hair = adorable. Scratch that, ruined. Thankfully Jewel is only a 10 minute walk from my apartment. I was pleased that the first recipe only had a few ingredients, some of which I already owned. Phew, I didn't feel like spending a small fortune to cook my first dish. As I gather the necessary ingredients I breathe a sigh or relief, not too expensive. Onions, check. Garlic, check. French bread, I'll pick it up tomorrow in time for dinner. Chicken Stock, oh geeze, 16 cups! 8 cans later... Cheese.

According to M. Pépin, I have the choice of using emmenthaler, gruyère or jarlsberg. Considering I've only ever heard of gruyère, I figure that's my safest option. I arrive at the cheese counter. No gruyère. No emmenthaler. But there is jarlsberg... for almost $10/lb! I asked the lady behind the counter if they carried gruyère, she'd never heard of it before. Hmmm. I wasn't even going to try to ask about the emmenthaler, since I'm pretty sure I could barely say it correctly. So jarlsberg it is. The lady asked if I was sure that I wanted 1.5 pounds of it at almost $10/lb. Unfortunately for me, I was sure. $14 and some change worth of cheese later, I was on my way to the checkout.

The rest of the ingredients totaled up to barely $20, then the cheese was rang up and my grocery bill jumped. Ah well, I'm sure $14 and some change for cheese will seem like nothing by the end of this endeavor. When I got home, I tasted a small slice of the cheese that broke the bank, one thing's for sure, it's going to make for some good soup. I hope.

Mme. Pépin: The Why

Why would the most undomestic of my parent's three children want to face the challenge of cooking through "Chez Jacques", Jacques Pépin's 100 favorite recipes? This is the person whose friends run in fear if she ever mentions that she made a pesto, the person whose kitchen has one piece of counter space, the person who is still scared of her gas oven after living in that small kitchened apartment for over a year now.

The why is that my God-mother is about to die. I only knew her well enough to know how amazing she is for a short time. One of her passions in life is cooking, and on one of my visits to Pittsburg, TX (yes, such a place exists) she insisted on showing me how to make Gratin Dauphinois from Jacques Pépin's "Chez Jacques". A month or so later she sent that cookbook to me with the inscription:

"To live outside oneself – to make others happy is a great joy – try it with cooking. Love Beck"

Now, as we count down the days until her departure from this earth, I've decided to do something with that cookbook, that inscription. I wrote to her a promise, that I'd cook through "Chez Jacques". Is it going to be painful, quite possibly. Expensive, most definitely. Scary, yes.

Thankfully, one of my best friends has decided to join me for this culinary adventure. Together we're going where few 20-somethings who aren't already chefs have gone before. Into a world where people eat things like sweet breads (and no I'm not talking about the rolls, look it up).

My mother was pleased when she heard my quest, she also thumbed through the book and veto-ed a few things: fois-gras, tripe, and headcheese. My boyfriend offered up "You're not a bad cook, it just takes you 3x as long to complete a recipe". Armed with my friend, some less than adequate cooking utensils and Jacques' thoughts and recipes I set out.