last night i made a roast chicken (organic, air chilled and yes, from whole foods) using the recipe in Alice Water's Art of Simple Food cookbook.  the recipe could not have been more simple as the title implies, but the result was both beautiful and delicious.  the chicken was tender and moist throughout and the skin crisped nicely.  this is the ( Read more... )

goodness all around.  tonight one of E's oldest friends came over for dinner.  she lives in Austin, but is doing an internship with the city of SF all summer and is living with her brother who lives in our neighborhood - on the other side of the lake.  its amazing to see her again.  its been so long, but the laughs were good and the food satisfying ( Read more... )

yesterday I made my second loaf of "almost no knead bread" - it was good, if not slightly undercooked.  the tricky thing about it is not burning the bottom, but still getting a nice golden brown crispy crust on top.  i suspect with each time it will get better, i will find some strategies to help out with the oven temp change midstream ( Read more... )

last night I made steak frites from an America's Test Kitchen recipe and also made sweet potato frites for my monthly test recipe for Leite's Culinaria.  while steak frites was not a Top Chef classic, many would consider it a classic French meal, so I was going to put it on my classics list.

first off, the sweet potato frites were made in the oven ( Read more... )