Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Entertaining

July 22, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Entertaining does not always have to mean you cooking everything, especially when you live in a city like New York. It is so much more important to get together with the people you love and don’t let anything or any excuse get in the way of that. My good friend, Susan, pointed this out to me and executed a beautiful example this past week.

We were invited to their apartment this past Tuesday evening. Now Susan always does a beautiful job. She usually makes all the food and we have such a good time getting together and catching up and discussing politics. But this past Tuesday was so darn hot here, she decided to change it up a bit. No matter, as long as you serve it with LOVE, it makes no difference.

She had her fish store, Dorian, on York Avenue between 83rd and 84th Street, deliver some beautiful poached salmon fillets with some green sauce on the side. Then she put together a gorgeous platter of the salmon with the sauce, along with some fresh cucumber and dill. She made a cold yummy rice salad ahead of time with black nicoise olives, served some gorgeous sliced heirloom tomatoes with chopped fresh basil along with some guacamole (also from the fish store). Add some warm rolls and butter and we were all set. It was so delicious and THE perfect menu for a hot summer night. Plus, she could spend the whole cocktail time with us in the living room as dinner was already made.

Dessert was a French yogurt cake she made, topped with a dallop of mascarpone cheese and fresh blueberries and raspberries. The perfect ending to a perfect meal!!
But I forgot to take a picture!!

As part of our hostess gift, we brought a little bit of the country to them – Ethel’s garlic.

Susan says they won’t be able to take the subway after eating this garlic! Taxis all the way from now on! Woohoo!

Fresh farm stand garlic!

Ethel and her garlic

Pesto!!

July 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

I had a dinner party this past Wednesday night that was so much fun. One of my senior designers who worked for me years ago, I think back in the late 80’s, was in town and got in touch. She now lives in Singapore. She connected with another former designer and I got in touch with Carl, who was the second person I ever hired for the firm in the early 80’s. So with other friends, we were 8 people in total and three were past employees of PM+CO! It was just great catching up. Linda is a vegetarian and I wanted to make sure the whole meal was amassed with local farm vegetables from upstate, to bring great country flavors to a NYC dinner party. So I started with a salad of farm lettuce and arugula from my garden, topped with roasted beets, Coach Farms goat cheese, toasted pine nuts and a sherry vinaigrette. I then roasted two huge trays of vegetables – yellow squash, zucchini, Portobello mushrooms, eggplant, Vidalia onions, smashed whole garlic cloves (from Ethel’s garden), red, and orange peppers and baby turnips – with Greek olive oil and French grey salt. I made a mass of steamed Jasmine rice, folded in Goya black beans (for protein) and for the non-vegetarians, I pan roasted 2 whole chickens seasoned with salt, pepper and Garam Masala. It was all really simple. I also had made some basil pesto the night before from basil in my garden, picked on Monday. I decided to put some of that in a bowl and people spooned it on everything and even took some home! I was originally going to fold the pesto into the rice and beans but after taking a survey from everyone during the cocktail hour, we decided this was the way to go. A dollop on top on the vegetables was divine. Barbara asked for a batch as her Christmas present and Mary Beth took a container full home. People just wanted to eat it straight. I really never dreamed of that for pesto. I just wanted to serve it because I had just made a bunch and with our youngest being in Europe, we couldn’t possibly eat it all, although pesto does freeze quite well.

We finished the meal with a rhubarb crisp (really quick and easy to make) topped with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. Not bad for a weeknight dinner party!

Here is the pesto recipe. Remember, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients for any dish you make, so use the very best you can.

PESTO
-makes about 3 cups

3 cups of packed basil leaves, thoroughly washed and dried
6 – 7 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups Greek extra virgin olive oil (I like Athena brand)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan (Reggiano) cheese
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano (Locatelli) cheese
salt
pepper

In a large food processor, combine basil, garlic and walnuts. Process to make a near paste. Scrape bowl. With machine on, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Scrape bowl again. Add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and 20 grinds on fresh pepper. Process again, taste and add more salt, if necessary, to your liking.

A one cup portion is enough to coat 1 lb. of dried pasta, cooked. I like it on fusilli best as it can get in all the little groves for maximum coverage and flavor.

This freezes well.

Basil in my garden.

Pesto pasta and tomatoes in a white bowl.

Dinner with our good friend, Nancy, on Saturday, started with this course.

Tanglewood!

July 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

I love going to Tanglewood. Before we had our upstate house, I had always dreamed of being able to be close by to there to do exactly what we did last Saturday. I love the setting, I love the whole picnic dinner, I love the music. Diana Krall was playing and she was fantastic! So last weekend, two of my brothers and their wives joined us at our upstate house, which is not far from Tanglewood. (My dream came true!) On Saturday afternoon, I fried up two and a half chickens, made a fabulous potato salad (if I can say so myself) along with a tomato and peach salad and some brownies. My sister-in-laws filled in with a wonderful vegetable slaw, a selections of cheeses, nuts and grapes. Add some fantastic bottles of wine from my brothers and we were all set!!

We were so set, that I forgot to take pictures of all the food and our plates!!

But here’s the evening – and what was left of the buttermilk fried chicken.

Two of my brothers at Tanglewood

This was full of buttermilk fried chicken

This is what was left.

The remains of the dinner

The scene!

Elegant couple with candlelit picnic dinner at Tanglewood.

This elegant couple gladly posed for me. Notice the silver candlesticks and flowers. The guy told me he chose his shirt on purpose to match!

Diana playing.

I need to talk to you of what I have learned of the importance of voice – and what Diana Krall has taught me. She is so soft, so mellow, soooo sexy with that contralto voice of hers. She could almost say anything to you and you would agree. If you got mad at your husband with her voice, he’d just have to kiss you and do anything you wanted. Seriously.
I think we don’t pay enough attention to our voice and the strength of it – and we should. So pay attention to not only what you say but how you say it. It makes a huge difference.

An early summer delight!

June 29, 2012 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

It’s the season for soft shell crabs, a personal favorite of mine. After a true Seinfeld episode with Felix from the fish store calling numerous times and yelling at me, I finally got my order delivered. I have to say, it was worth the abuse.

What I did was so stupid simple and so very good, my husband is still talking about them today. That’s the sign of a really good meal – the memorable factor!

Here’s what I did.

SOFT SHELL CRABS
– serves 2

4 cleaned, washed and dried soft shell crabs
Organic buttermilk to cover the crabs
2 tbs. canola oil
1.5 tbs. unsalted butter
Flour to lightly dredge in on a flat plate
Fresh snipped chives to garnish
Lemon wedges

Have your fishmonger clean your crabs before you bring them home. (Put up with the abuse.) Place crabs in a narrow deep bowl to stack them and cover with buttermilk and let them sit for 15-25minutes, turning them once in the middle of the time. Heat the oil until very hot and add the butter. When the butter foam subsides, lift a crab out to drain the buttermilk and dredge lightly in the flour to cover and place in the hot pan. Once all the crabs are in, place a heavier, preferable cast iron skillet, on top of them to weight them down and cook for 3 minutes. Remove the top skillet and turn the crabs over and cook for another 3 minutes, no weight on top this time.

Lift them from the pan, sprinkle chopped chives on top and serve with fresh lemon wedges.

Delish!!! (Notice they didn’t even need any salt or pepper – I think the organic buttermilk was important and of course the quality of the crabs.)

A Tribute to Nora Ephron, 1941-2012

June 27, 2012 by Mary Frances 6 Comments

I am so sad. I didn’t even know she was sick. And she was so young, only 71.

Why do I feel so bad about the passing of someone who I never even met?

Because she had a way of making me feel like I knew her well. She shared so many intimacies and made fun of them – made the best out of them.

I first “met” Nora in Heartburn. I remembering reading the book in the 80s and thinking how clever that she intertwined recipes throughout – what a neat idea. I took note of that for the future. And here I am now, a visual artist, writing a blog and writing recipes! In the movie, when she has her second son and her husband gives her a beautiful sapphire ring after she just delivered the baby, (course he was guilty as hell, having an affair), I thought wow, as I was pregnant with our second child. I wonder if my husband will give me a fancy piece of jewelry. Ha! No jewelry and he thought I could get home from Lenox Hill by myself in a taxi with the baby and 20 flower arrangements. But my husband wasn’t having an affair. (At least I don’t think so.)

This is the thing, with Nora, you felt like you had so much in common. (I actually met Meryl Streep at our local organic farm store upstate last summer. Until we watched Heartburn that night, I had forgotten that Meryl was in the movie, playing the real life Nora!)

She was raised Jewish. I was raised Catholic. She wrote Love Loss and What I Wore. I would write Love, Loss and What I Ate!

When I moved back to NYC in 2007, I remember hearing about her book, I Feel Bad About my Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. Since that came out, I have been religious about putting on neck cream every single day, and she’s right about having to shave your legs less as you get older. I think about that in the shower every morning. And she doesn’t even know how much she’s influenced me! How many others like me are out there?

Recently, I read an interview with Nora in the NY Times Magazine and she said that she was so glad that she no longer had to worry about financial things – that she was thankful that was out of the way. I hope to get to that place soon too.

Rest in peace Nora. We will all miss your wit and insights.

For Nora – our Rhodie bush in the country

Father’s Day!

June 19, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Hope all you Dads out there had a great day!! Because our youngest left on Friday for a seven week vacation in Poland and Eastern Europe, our Father’s Day came early. They surprised my husband on Thursday evening, He came home from work to a beautifully set dining room table and both boys busy in the kitchen. I made cocktails for all and we had a grand time.

Here’s what they made. They started with a salad of arugula, topped with thinly sliced radishes and carrots, followed with avocado and a white wine and olive oil vinagrette. The meal was scaloppini of veal poached in a homemade vegetable broth with tarragon, dill and parsley, (a Mark Bittman recipe), served over parboiled broccoli rabe that was then flash broiled, and finished with a tossing of olive oil and chopped garlic, with mandoline sliced potatoes, coated in clarified butter and baked, (a French Laundry recipe). I am not making this up. They did it all and it was amazing and delicious!!!

Mark Bittman's recipe of veal poached in vegetable broth on red and white plates.

Father’s Day finished plates