• Creme fraiche is a great way to perk up soups, desserts and anything else that could do with a bit of extra creamy zing.
• Nine Baltimore-area cooks stretch and flex their cassoulet muscles at the eighth annual cassoulet cook-off.
• Just in time for harvest, Rob Kasper checks out beers made with apples and narrows the field down to some of his favorites.
• This week's Wine Find is the Dow's Trademark Finest Reserve Porto - a creamy, sweet and balanced dessert wine.
• Elizabeth Large's Top Ten is a round up of restaurants that aren't quite institutions but still reserve that sense of permanence.
• It's time, once again, to send in your favorite cookie recipes for this year's cookie contest. Recipes must be in by Nov. 5th to be considered.

I've finished cooking my cassoulet, and it wasn't near as bad as I feared. Other than being labor-intensive for about an hour, it cooked all by itself while I hung out with my family. It's now being consumed as fast as we can shovel it in our mouths. It's so flavorful, and the different sorts of meats really go together well. I love LOVE the beans. I could eat them one by one all night long.

Next time, I think I'll make it with lamb and substitute something else for the garlic sausage - I don't really like it much. Maybe something spicy like andouille (although I know that's going a bit in a different direction). The duck is fantastic, and although the whole dish is pricey, it's worth it - I fed six adults for about $30, and you could go cheaper by purchasing your stew meat from a regular grocery store.

It's about 2 p.m. here in Portland, and I'm starting to cook my cassoulet. I've got a pile full of meats from Pastaworks (I'm using the veal for my yummy French stew). I'm a little jittery, as there are so many steps and so many different kinds of meat! I'm looking forward to finally attempting this legendary French country dish (the ultimate in slow cooking, if you ask me).

I'm going to start by cooking the white beans and, while they're simmering, I'll broil the duck confit. I'm terrified by duck, so I need a clear head and a clean kitchen.

I've decided to finally approach my fears head-on and make cassoulet. I've searched high and low for a good recipe and found a couple of great blueprints. I linked to this extremely detailed post on cassoulet when I spoke of it before, and I'm printing it out to use as a guide through my adventure.

Before you can make cassoulet, you have to decide how you're going to handle the meats. Most cassoulets are centered around duck, and use several parts of the bird. A classic rendition has the chef roasting the duck, rendering the fat, and making a 'confit' of the leg and a demiglace (French for stock) of the carcass. What's more, after all that, you have to select which other meats to include.

I made a critical decision when faced with my favorite butcher's meat counter and decided to buy duck confit already made. Brilliant no? It's pictured here. I also decided to go without the authentic duck stock and just buy storebought chicken broth. Hey, I don't have 48 hours to make this thing. I need cassoulet to be easy, or it's not happening.

Want to cook this live with me tonight? You'll have to head to the market. Here's what you'll need:

Bernard-Henri Lévy, author of American Vertigo, was the guest on The Daily Show tonight. In speaking about the political landscapes of the U.S. versus that in France, he said France's political leanings were like caviar vs. cassoulet.

I found that a little funny, as cassoulet is starting to be just very popular here, but I'd bet anything the concept doesn't work in the U.S. because both sides of the spectrum seem to have their redneck tendencies. And I wonder what food George W. Bush would identify with? Hmmm... he must be barbecued ribs, I think, so what does that make the Democrats? Clinton was a McDonald's hamburger, Kerry was... what, a clam bake maybe? Hillary, she seems like a cucumber sandwich kind of woman. Or is it lobster roll?

You leave the house in the dark. You come home in the dark. It's winter, and you yearn for a lovingly-cooked meal. Why not have it ready when you get home? Why not fill your house with the rustic aromas of slow cookery?

But I have a job, or, at least a life, I can hear you murmuring to yourself, shaking your head. I don't have a personal chef. I'll just throw a Lean Cuisine in the oven.

No! Stop! Put away that freezer meal. Freezers are for summer, when you eat ice cream and whir up smoothies with fresh fruit and yogurt. Winter is for slow cookers, for Crock-Pots and baking at low, low heat and, oh, the bountiful braise. Monday, January 23, we'll be celebrating all that is slow - all our recipes will cook at low heats for several hours. Nearly all of them can be mixed early in your day and set cooking, and the flavors will combine throughout the afternoon as the dish gets more, and more, and more tender, until it is meltingly delectable, until it sings on your tongue.

Classic slow-cooked meals were invented long before the Crock-Pot trademark was ever registered. Dishes like cassoulet and baked beans and Beef Bourguignonne hearken from centuries ago. Once, everything was cooked slow. We honor our culinary heritage. We long for food that has nothing "fast" about it.

Cassoulet is my nemesis. I long to try this classicly famous slow-cooked French country dish. In the winter, nothing sounds more satisfying and delectably fattening than a cassoulet. But more than the time to cook (between three and six hours, depending on your recipe) is the list of ingredients: 1/2 pound unsmoked bacon, fresh pork rind or fatback, confit duck legs, veal demi-glace, duck and Armagnac sausages, rendered duck fat.

Most of it has to do with my general fear of duck. It was only last month - and only for the good of the slashforce - that I had the guts to roast that fearfully fatty poultry. And I never had the cojones to use the duck fat (despite your encouragement and wonderful words). It was partly Jeffrey Steingarten's fault, with his exhaustive search for the perfect interpretation of the dish. How could something accessible be such a pinnacle of one of Steingarten's epic quests?

So I'm considering staring down my demons, and attempting the fearful dish, with all its duck parts and renderings and demi-glaces before you even get started on putting the dish together. Do you have any kind words as I approach my doppelganger? Do you have any tales of facing your own culinary fears?

[Photo Butter Pig]