Quiche Lorraine from Thomas Keller's cookbook. Photo: esposj, Flickr.
The craft beer hype has brought stout beer into the mainstream -- but the public's perception of it as purely "stout" is inaccurate.
Playwright humorist Paul Rudnick disproves parents everywhere in his new book, "I Shudder," by living 51 years subsisting mainly on candy -- and sveltely, at that. "What I love about Halloween is its childhood honesty," he says. "It's about what children want rather than what parents want them to want."
A touching story on the "softening" of chef Thomas Keller preceding his last meal with his once-estranged father.
Tater tots and Tecates have started to replace caviar and Chardonnay as foodie first dates take a more casual, adventurous note.
Prompted by a resourceful reader in Beijing, a New York Times writer matches Italian wine with Chinese fare In a pairing fit to make Marco Polo proud.
After ruinous delays for restaurateurs, the liquor license process has been streamlined by the new New York State Liquor Authority chairman, David Rosen.
Restaurants: Flushing, Queens' Imperial Palace is "at the zenith of Cantonese cooking in New York City;" Green Apple BBQ in East Harlem proffers a Mexican influence on Southern cuisine; Brooklyn's Rocky Sullivan's in Red Hook tackles steamed lobster, successfully.
Openings and closings; plus Dining Calendar -- highlights include Day of the Dead workshops, a pumpkin dinner and a meal in memory of Sheila Lukins of the Silver Palate.
It's National Grilled Cheese month, folks, and boy are we fans. Americans chomp upwards of 2 million sammies each year. Of course, as is typical of populist foods nowadays (burgers, fried chicken, mac 'n cheese) even high-minded artisans like Terrance Brennan and Thomas Keller have gotten into the act to put their spins on the classic. Brennan will take it one step further at Artisanal, his New York bistro and paean to all things fromage, with a grilled Cheese Sandwich Contest on April 29. It should be quite the showdown, with food-lebrity judges to boot.
But wait! You don't need to be local to enter this thing, and still have till Friday to wow the cheesemonger with a creation that will win you one of 12 places in the cookoff. And we're going to help you cheat. With the deadline looming, we went straight to Brennan for tips and were unsurprised to find that he hews close to a simple, winning formula: Use good bread, great cheese and no more than three ingredients.
Fave fromage? "I just love a good Comté," he says. His bread of choice, which he prefers on the crunchy side, is pain campagne. "It's a good bread and it's still kind of a little airy. [With] a baguette, you have too much bread. It's a texture thing." Stay away from using Parmesan for filler, he warns, but feel free to dust the outside with a few shavings as a seasoning agent to get a swell crust.
Not on the East Coast but need a fix? Head to L.A., where the Grilled Cheese Invitational began with a few dudes in an artist's loft caught up in a dare over which of them was a grilled cheese god. Seven years later the summit has more than 100 participants and processed cheese giant Kraft as a sponsor. Not bad for a simple little sammie.
Got a recipe that would destroy the competition? Let us know in the comments.
I didn't grow up eating fried chicken. My mom was always more of a baked chicken kind of person (she liked to keep things as healthy as possible). In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times in life I've eaten friend chicken. And to be honest, I've never made it myself. And yet, I find it fascinating and totally hypnotic. I love the idea of good fried chicken and aspire to one day giving it a try in my kitchen.
The guys at The Bitten Word have no fried chicken fear and recently whipped up not one, but two batches of the stuff. They put Clay's mom's fried chicken up against Thomas Keller's recipe and invited a whole bunch of friends over to help them with the taste test. Clay's mom's recipe was the winner, mostly for its classic taste and super crispy skin. Sounds delicious!
Wines to indulge in as summer wraps up: Pacific Rim 2006 Dry Riesling, Flat Rock Cellars 2006 Seriously Twisted, Konrad 2006 Sauvignon Blanc, Luigi Bosca Reserva 2005 Malbec, and Bodegas Carrau Ysern Blend of Regions 2004 Tannat.
Recipe: Penne with Asparagus, Oyster Mushrooms and Goat's-Milk Cheese.
Because I'm fascinated by food, it should come as no surprise to any of you out there that I read a lot of food blogs. There are a bunch that I've been following a long time, and some that are relatively recent additions to my RSS reader. One that has become a new favorite of mine, is French Laundry at Home.
Carol started her project back in January and has been steadily cooking her way through Thomas Keller's cookbook ever since. She not only prepares his recipes, but documents each step along the way with pictures and notes about her progress. She is not shy admitting where she deviates from the written recipe and lets her readers know how she and her tasters enjoyed each dish. In addition to being a pretty able cook, she's an entertaining writer, and when I read her posts, I begin to feel like she's a friend of mine.
The picture above is from one of her latest posts, when she made Nectarine Salad with Green Tomato Confiture and Hazelnut Sabayon.
Could you imagine waking up at dawn each morning to knead and shape dough, letting it rise for a few hours, then take it to a centrally located oven where it is baked alongside everyone else's? This is the norm for many families in places like Morocco, though with modernization the tradition is beginning to fade.
In Pixar's latest film Ratatouille, Remy the Rat learned his culinary skills from the best of the best - Thomas Keller, owner of French Laundry in Yountville, California.
Is your organic food really all organic? The Department of Agriculture is preparing to approve a list of non-organic ingredients that could make the cut in food stamped with their organic seal
Frank Bruni asks some of the more prominent names in the food industry which meals or moments in their pasts were "pinnacles of carnivorous gluttony." Yes, pig snout made the list.
A few months ago, Sarah showed us some photos taken by James Yu, a former Slashfood writer, of his visit to French Laundry. Now Kevin, a Slashfood reader, has shared his own experience at Thomas Keller's world class restaurant with us. Though a few of the items are duplicate, I thought the majority of pictures (and individual courses) were unique enough that we could afford to take another peek. His tab? Over $600 per person, which included the extensive tasting menu, drinks, tax and tip.
In case you aren't aware, Thomas Keller recently won the title of Outstanding Restaurateur at the 2007 James Beard Foundation Awards, and French Laundry was named 4th best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine, scoring as "Best of the Americas."
Needless to say, this is pretty much the ultimate in food porn. I've included a few more of Kevin's photos after the jump, but you can visit his entire collection (with full descriptions of what you are looking at) at his website via the 'read' link below.
I guess it's not surprising, considering only 8 of the top 50 are here in the United States and none are near me. Thomas Keller's The French Laundry in Yountville, CA is the top U.S. restaurant at #4. Other U.S. spots include Per Se, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Charie Trotter's, Daniel, Alinea, and Chez Panisse. The top restaurant is El Bulli in Spain (the site also lists restaurants 51 to 100).
If you've been with us here at Slashfood since we launched back in 2005, then you might remember one of our writers, James Yu. Well, James has since moved on to bigger and better things (hey! don't forget about us little people, James!) -- bigger and better enough that he's able to dine at Thomas Keller's French Laundry!
James took some great photos of his meal there, and also describes each of the courses he experienced. The dish pictured is called "Oysters and Pearls," which is sabayon of pearl tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters and white sturgeon caviar, but that's only the beginning. If you're feeling a little like a voyear, take a peek at his Flickr photo set!
Ad Hoc is the name of Thomas Keller's comfort-food restaurant in Yountville, California, just down the street from Keller's other restaurants, French Laundry and Bouchon. The restaurant opened about six months ago with the intention of providing a "Sunday dinner atmosphere" to diners, with a focus on seasonal ingredients and comfort foods, as opposed to the seasonal by upscale offerings at the French Laundry. It offers only one fixed price menu and everything is served family style. When it opened, Keller declared that the restaurant would be temporary, as he really wanted to open a burger restaurant in the location and needed something to occupy the space while the plans for that upscale fast food venture were ironed out. Ad Hoc has become so popular, both with diners and with staff, that Keller has decided to lengthen its stay. Permanently.
He is not, however, giving up on his "burgers and bottles" idea of a gourmet fast food restaurant that complements its offerings with high quality wines from the surrounding vineyards. He is simply looking for yet another location in which it can be realized. For the time being, Keller says that he might add a burger to the menu at Ad Hoc just to get the ball on the idea - which Keller has been keeping on the back burner for 15 years - rolling.
They went to New York first, but this week, the inspectors for the Michelin Guide made their designations around the San Francisco Bay area. 356 restaurants were listed. 23 received one star (*), four received two stars (**), and only one restaurant received the coveted three star rating (***): Thomas Keller's The French Laundry in Yountville (Napa Valley).
It's not totally surprising, as Keller also received three stars for his restaurant Per Se in New York. However, some folks, like Paul Franson, a wine country writer and author of the weekly Napa Life newsletter, were surprised that more restaurants didn't receive the highest rating.
Her reasoning is multi-fold. The region benefits from the lingering after-effects of culinary giants like Alice Waters, Jonathan Waxman and Jeremiah Tower. There is also a branch of the CIA, Greystone, in the town of St. Helena, where Sheraton recommends appetizers (rather than a full meal). In the town of Napa, Copia, the American Center for wine, offers classes, demonstrations and tastings. There are farms thar provide the local restaurants with fresh ingredients, and the restaurants themselves are notable: La Toque, Mustards Grill, Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, Terra, and of course, Thomas Keller's Bouchon and French Laundry.
Still, I think I'd want to squeeze in at least one vineyard.
As is often the case, I found myself perusing the shelves of a specialty beer store the other day when I spied a bottle of Harpoon Brewery's Kellerbier. No, the brew doesn't take its name from Chef Thomas Keller, but I'm pretty sure the man behind The French Laundry would appreciate it.
Kellerbier, as it turns out literally translates to cellar beer in English. The unfiltered, unpasteurized lager was first brewed by Germans in the Middle Ages. Harpoon's version is the 13th entry in the New England brewery's 100 Barrel Series. I couldn't wait to try it since the beers in this line are all made in batches limited to 100 barrels. Small-batch bourbon, sure. But small-batch beer, I could hardly contain my glee as I walked home with the bottle.
I'd never had a kellerbier before, but Harpoon's was fine as kind as they say in New England. The cloudy brew has few bubbles coursing through it, almost like a bitter. It pours with a delicate head, which in spite of its lightness leaves trails of Belgian lace on the glass. Aside from being quite refreshing and packing a nice little kick at 5.5 alcohol by volume it's delicious. There's not much pronounced malt flavor, but whatever hops they used gave it some mighty complex notes. I was reminded of sweet tea and orange. Further investigation is in order.
Lemons are everywhere right now. Since it's summer, refreshingly sweet and tart lemonade comes to mind right away. So does a lemon tart.
When I originally made this, I was going to use the recipe from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook, but instead, I went back to my old standard, Joy of Cooking. For some reason, their tart recipe that uses one entire stick of butter and eight egg yolks (yes, eight!) seemed so much naughtier. The one thing I changed was the crust - rather than the usual pastry crust, I used a graham cracker crumb crust, to which I added about 2 tsp. fresh grated ginger. Lemon and ginger seem to be my favorite pairing this year.
Thomas Keller's new restaurant, which we first mentioned in passing when it was still just a rumor, is not officially going to open until July and the venture may be only a temporary one. Named Ad Hoc, the restaurant will serve a fixed price, four course menu each night it is open (Thursday-Monday) with a casual, Sunday dinner atmosphere. The food will be comfortable and homey, not as upscale as the French Laundry down the street, and will focus heavily on seasonal ingredients and foods that Keller says are some of his favorites, like fried chicken and beef stroganoff.
Ultimately, Keller plans to turn the space into either a burger restaurant or a sushi restaurant, so Ad Hoc might not be around all that long. They will not take reservations, so plan a trip through Yountville, CA to check it out before it's gone.
Is it bad that I haven't visited any of 
Ad Hoc is the name of Thomas Keller's comfort-food restaurant in Yountville, California, just down the street from Keller's other restaurants, 
They went to New York first, but this week, the inspectors for the Michelin Guide made their designations around the San Francisco Bay area. 356 restaurants were listed. 23 received one star (*), four received two stars (**), and 
The question is, would you really go all the way to the Napa Valley wine country and not taste wine?
As is often the case, I found myself perusing the shelves of a specialty beer store the other day when I spied a bottle of 
Thomas Keller's new restaurant, which we first mentioned in passing when it was still just a rumor, is not officially going to open until July and the venture may be only a temporary one. Named 
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