Over the weekend Cheryl requested something new and untried for Sunday dinner and said she’d pick from the cookbook shelf. The winning recipe of the ones she chose: Bourdain’s Palette de Porc a la Biere; a.k.a beer braised pork shoulder with mustard sauce. (more…)
For the longest time I had huge problems trying to make linguine with clam sauce like my mom’s. Try as I might I could never get it as thick as hers. I tried everything too, more butter, less liquid, more clams, nothing ever seemed to work. I had pretty much given up hope I’d ever recreate it until the Christmas I asked for copies of her recipe books. Once the books arrived I saw the recipe for clam sauce and the secret code was revealed… (more…)
Looking for a Mardi Gras cocktail that isn’t a Hurricane? Try a Sazerac instead. In my opinion, the Sazerac is New Orleans. Not only was it invented there but it’s also the Crescent City’s official cocktail. The Sazerac also has some distinctive New Orleans ingredients, Peychaud’s bitters and Herbsaint, which really make it a drink fit for your Fat Tuesday celebration.
Originally crafted in the mid 1800’s the Sazerac consisted of cognac (Sazerac de Forge et Fils to be specific, thus the cocktail’s name), absinthe, Peychaud’s bitters and some sugar. Rye whiskey was substituted for cognac during the phylloxera plague of the 1870’s (cognac being a French brandy made from grapes) and Herbsaint replaced absinthe when the US government decided to ban it in 1912, making it much more of an American cocktail and full of local flavors since both Peychaud’s bitters and Herbsaint were created in New Orleans. (more…)
