Dinner and desert at le petit portoise

Rabbit, monkfish, duck breast, tarte tatin.

Le Petit Portoise

Apetizers from last night. One with crab, one with creyfish and beans, one camembert crusted almond and honey.

King crab

Had to post another teaser, behold delicious cold king crab pre cracked with special mayonnaise. Found again at l ecume st honore. Caw!

Bistro d'henri

Forgot to post dinner two nights ago. In the 6th, french, fall aparty lamb was the best, and the sardine salad, then way too many drinks. Julie is still drinking 3 days later.

Normandie oysters

Paris introduced me to oysters with salted butter, rye bread, lemon and mignonette and today we had that and enhanced with a soundtrack of seagulls and surrounded in super fresh looking fish. Number 3 oysters are small, getting larger as the number goes down we had 4 types of oysters split and currently ordering a followup of king crab and saumon fumee and marinade de langoustine of course all with a bottle or two of sancerre.

L ecume st honore

Forgot the name of the oyster place. Its on rue marche st honore.

First tango in paris

Rencontre with fusilli and broccoli at the coude fou in paris. Delicious 'lotte' (monkfish) with veggie pate and fall aparty steamed veggies and skewer fare. Broccoli's soup in a pumpkin trick, ginger, coconut and pumpkin. And I missed the shot of fusillis virginal feast but shot her here with backdrop of vagine and wine.

Parisian Meat surfboard

dinner at karens in paris, featuring a meat surfboard - the creamiest fois gras ever, country french cured ham and other treats. I failed to take the shots of 4 amazing cheeses, my favorite 'l'epoisse'. Then killer reds, one of which was a gevfrey chambertin 2006. Broccoli to post more on the night.

Not Turkey

This year's Christmas dinner marks the beginning of a new holiday tradition. A Christmas without Turkey... without stuffing, without mashed potatoes and best of all... without driving for hours on end on Christmas eve.

Instead, a chance to relax and enjoy the perfect holiday meal... beef tenderloin with a green peppercorn sauce. On the side—sautéed savoy cabbage with pancetta and rosti potato.

Happy Ho Ho

Sweetwater

Back in October, some friends and I went to the After Dark event in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. After exploring the new and very beautiful inside-and-out Modern Wing, we walked north on Michigan Avenue past Millennium Park to a not-so-new-now spot called Sweetwater. It's a large, open space with huge windows and roomy booths with a fantastic and tasty (and from a graphic design point of view, well-designed) menu. It was a rainy and cold night in Chicago so I opted for comfort food: the "Homestyle Meatloaf" with garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, asparagus, coleslaw and honey butter corn bread. Makes me hungry just writing about it. Hmmm....what to have next time?!

What I've been eating & tweeting

I found someone else (other than Broccoli) who tweets what they eat! And better yet, they actually put their data to good use by analyzing it. So I decided to plug in my data, and this is the tweet cloud that was spit out:

Mom's Hot Chocolate

Hello Blog. Sorry it's been so long since the foreign correspondent checked in. Many weddings and other fun times this fall have kept me away from blogging. But I have many images from the archives to share. I was just in Omaha for Thanksgiving. Family, fun and delicious food. One of the many culinary highlights...Mom's hot chocolate. It really doesn't taste the same without the sprinkles. What I wouldn't give for some of this hot chocolate in this "blizzie blizzardo" weather outside my window tonight!

Bar food at home

You know how on every episode of  a Nigella (Lawson, like you needed to ask!) show, she sneaks down in the middle of the night to have a bite of some delectable leftover in her fridge? This calamari could be that midnight snack for me; I guess I over-estimated how much two people could eat. Crispy, light, and so easy to make, the batter is just cornstarch, semolina and Old Bay seasoning (paprika, if you can't find Old Bay) sizzled to perfection in grapeseed oil but peanut oil's also a good option. Tonight we had it with garlic mayo for dipping, edamame and Beau's, an organic local beer I picked up while visiting friends in Ottawa last weekend. Happy hour at home!

Attack of the giant strawberry

This doesn't seem right: a giant siamese strawberry that's *practically* the size of a 6 year old's head? Okay, a slight exaggeration, but still.