tim merritt [dot] net

Three feast on Buford Highway for $42 | Omnivore Atlanta.

I am going to eat at this place, and very soon. Close to home, and looks fabulous.

Will made a big honking pot of chili from the ancestral Gadberry recipe. Oh my yes.

Shrimp Pho.

Creamy Chicken Liver Pâté

• 10 to 15 peppercorns
• 2 allspice berries
• 1 clove
• 4 coriander seeds
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 pound chicken livers
• Salt
• 1/3 cup cream
• 1 to 2 tablespoons brandy

• Bread or crackers for serving.

  1. In a spice grinder or clean coffee grinder, combine peppercorns, allspice, clove and coriander seeds; grind until fine and set aside.

  2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium-high heat; when foam subsides, add onion and cook until softened, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add livers to pan and sprinkle with salt; cook livers on one side until they begin to brown, about 2 minutes, then flip them and cook the other side. Be sure to keep heat relatively high so that the outside of livers sears and inside stays pink.

  3. Put onion, livers and their buttery juices into a food processor or blender with remaining butter, the cream, spices and brandy. Purée mixture until it is smooth; taste and adjust seasoning.

  4. Put pâté in a terrine or bowl, smooth top and put in refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours or until fully set. Serve pâté with bread or crackers.

  Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

  Via the New York Times.

Since my brother gave me a nice bottle of Balvenie Single Barrel last year, I’ve tried other single malts: Laphroig, Macallan, Auchentoshan, and a few others. There’s much to be said for the very smoky Laphroig, and the Auchentoshan is very nice too, but Balvenie continues to be my favorite, both the single barrel he gave me (long gone, alas) and the 12-year-old double barrel.

About to leave to pick up my mother for her 80th birthday celebration. It’s a surprise, and my sister Janine has worked for a long while to make this happen. We’ve got a room reserved at Violette, a French restaurant well north of downtown Atlanta but still within the inner burbs. We’ll have about 70 people from what I understand.

I’ll compose some thoughts about her to publish here. In the meantime, look for pictures soon!

I want to eat these Two tasty things that Creative Loafing’s Omnivore blog writes about.

A delicious-looking recipe for Creamy Gazpacho.

Just picked up our food for a hotel-room picnic from Papillote French Cuisine To-Go, a lovely little French kitchen near our hotel. I picked a mushroom soup (not creamy) to start, duck confit for me and a salmon and asparagus quiche for Ellen—both come with green salad and the chef’s ginger vinaigrette—and for dessert the merangue Ellen demanded. (Demanded! Yes!)

The charming Ariana made choosing the food very fun. She offered tastes of the soup, explained what was in the different dishes, told me of her (yet to be visited) relations in France, and made the whole experience a real pleasure before we’d eaten a bite.

While Ariana got everything ready for me, I walked down to the SCAD box office for tickets to the Battle Royale, the culmination of a very prestigious competition among several top-notch high school jazz bands—two from California, two from Washington state, one from Oregon, three from Florida. (See the extended quotation below.) this is some serious business, and we’re going to see the finals. Excited.

The winners of our fourth annual SWING CENTRAL High School Jazz Band Competition & Workshop, three of the finest high school jazz bands in the country, open the show with the music of Thad Jones, Benny Carter and Johnny Mercer.

Then, prepare yourself for an event of unbridled skill and improvisation. For decades, jazz musicians have pushed the limits of conceptual music: engaging in friendly competition known as “cutting.” BATTLE ROYALE pits masters of the art of improv going head-to-head. Selected student musicians from SWING CENTRAL are also featured.

Marcus Roberts Trio vs. The Clayton Bros.
Wycliffe Gordon vs. Andre Hayward
Scotty Barnhart vs. Terrell Stafford
Jeff Clayton vs. Mace Hibbard

Update: Excellent. The three bands were crisp and solid. The third place band got a challenging ballad which though subtle didn’t impress the way the more upbeat songs from the other two bands did. I believe the song didn’t serve them well. Very enjoyable. Then came the cutting: the bands and players they name above were just amazing, and that word is used on purpose. Amazing. Jazz lives, friends.

Mark Bittman has the perfect job, putting together this list of 101 Simple Appetizers in 20 Minutes or Less for his NYT column, The Minimalist.
Not hungry? You will be, and happily so. So go, read. And eat.

Blog Envy: Tips, Tools & Ingredients : bonappetit.com
A slide show of food blogs would seem tto be too media rich; I mean, why blog about blogs with a Flash-based slide show? Oh, right, advertising. I look forward to checking out the actual blogs soon, though, as I’m at work and can’t stop to read it now.

A No-Frills Kitchen Still Cooks – New York Times
Sage advice.

Adapted from a recipe photocopied from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the date of which didn’t get copied and cannot be found on their site. Good on you, AJC! Citation requirements more or less met, on with the recipe.

Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomato

3/4 cup bread crumbs
1-lb package cavatappi or penne pasta
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 quart milk
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pound each, shredded: processed cheese (like Velveeta, etc), Parmesan (original recipe called for Gruyère; we liked the Parm so much we’ve never tried with Gruyère)
1 pound cooked BACON, crumbled
3 ripe plum tomatoes, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta al dente, drain, and keep warm. While the water heats and/or the pasta cooks, generously butter a 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Add 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs; shake to coat dish evenly. Melt butter in a saucepan and whisk in the flour, continuing to stir for about 2 minutes. Add the nutmeg and continue stirring for another minute. Whisk in the milk in a steady stream. Heat to a boil and cook, still stirring, for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, add the shredded cheeses, and stir until they melt.

Add the sauce to the cooked pasta and mix thoroughly. Put half of the pasta mixture into the prepared baking dish and top with the tomatoes and BACON in an even layer. Add the remaining pasta mixture. Mix the remaining bread crumbs in the olive oil and sprinkle over the dish. Bake until golden and bubbly, about 45 minutes. Modestly accept plaudits from your dining companions.

I have never made this; Ellen always does, and it’s always just mighty good.

Tea and Food: Again, Savory Oatmeal was linked from a comment on an osso buco recipe posted on Mark Bittman’s NYT Bitten blog. I am going to get up from this keyboard, prep the steel cut oats in the rice cooker, and go to bed. I’ll start it when I stumble in to get my (timer-brewed) coffee in the morning, and I really really look forward to some savory oats with cheese and egg in the morning.

Serious Eats is a seriously fun food blog, and while they enjoy and usually write well about fine dining, they also know how to point readers and eaters to good inexpensive eats as well. My mother – a.k.a. Mom, a.k.a. Nana – is travelling to Montreal and Quebec City with a dear friend from Switzerland early next summer. 48 Hours in Montreal: A Guide to Eating won’t entirely be to their taste (they don’t worship quite as ardently at the altar of the pig, for example) but they should find some valuable ideas here and it the comments. I may travel there next year too, but whenever I do, this will be one of my key references.

Apple City World-Champion Baby-Back Ribs from the New York Times.

No, oatmeal is not boring when it has these added to it:

• fresh blueberries
• freshly toasted walnuts
• small shot of walnut oil from Global Gardens

• honey from Red Rocket Farm (Thanks, Jason)

Just leaving the beautiful Bridlewood winery. To us Georgians, the excellence of California central-coast weather is a constant revelation. Bright sunshine all day, but with the low desert humidity, frequent breezes, and the world’s largest air conditioning system – the Pacific Ocean – it stays wonderfully comfortable all day long.

The wineries here are among horse ranches, vegetable farms, some small private houses, and the lovely golden hills. There’s a lavender farm we have saved for a visit tomorrow morning before we return to Global Gardens for some local olive oils and vinegars. We have happy happy taste buds.

Kalyra’s, and California’s, admonition to wine tasters.

Impending intoxfication aside, we unfortunately cannot take advantage of their generous deals on shipping wine to Georgia. We’ll have to put some our luggage and check it.

RSS feeds are a good thing, and the feed from “Serious Eats”: brings me great food ideas and recipes every day. This one is a new favorite: Grilled Chicken Thighs with Roasted Grape Tomatoes, explaining the origin of capers, both sizes. We had the roasted grape tomatoes tonight with turkey burgers. Easy and well worth a try.

(more…)