Valentines Day

"I am not a glutton, I am an explorer of food." ~ Erma Bombeck

Some where along the way Valentines Day went from being the romantic dinner for two, to a festive dinner for five. Even though we had some flu in the house  I thought "the dinner most go on"!

Mark and I visited Gryffon's Aerie Farm to pick up some amazing grass fed beef for our steak au poivre. We had roasted potatoes, a green salad with vinegarette and homemade bread with it.

To go with our champagne I've always wanted to make gougeres (cheese puffs). They were super tasty and you can freeze them to reheat later.

To finish off the meal the girls voted for a red velvet cake. I could only bring myself to add half  the amount of red food coloring, which was an entire bottle and it was plenty red. The icing was a seven minute icing which came out really well; almost like a marshmallow topping. It was well received! 

Cowgirl Creamery

I ordered these great cheese wrapping papers from the Cowgirl Creamery. You can wrap your cheese up and write on it what kind it is and when you bought it. Great hostess gift too.

Since I was home all week with sick children I got to those parmesan pull apart rolls from gourmet. They are amazing, but definitely best the day they are made. See I had to try one while they were still hot out of the oven!

There's a great food radio show on NPR by Lynne Rossetto Kasper called the Splendid Table. I download the podcasts and listen to them on my ipod all the time. Or just stream them while I'm in the kitchen. She also has a great website to go with it splendidtable.com

Dining Out

"I don't like food, I love it.  If I don't love it, I don't swallow" 

~Anton Ego from Ratatouille

There's a great article in the New York Times today about restaurants called Restaurants  Stop Playing Hard to Get.  I don't eat out that often, but I am concerned about our local businesses. This is a great restaurant town for it's size, so if you really love a local restaurant, you should try to support it, if at all possible. They can't all survive in this economy. I've seen the down town mall look deserted on a Saturday night. I stopped in the Blue Light Grill for cocktails this past weekend and had a wonderful dinner at C&O celebrating a friend's birthday. I think the service was more attentive than ever before and it made me think how upset I would be if they were ever forced to close. The cozy atmosphere is hard to beat and the food is consistantly good. A highlight from that meal was the blini with a poached egg and smoked salmon ( it would be great for brunch).

My mother took me to lunch at Savour today. I hadn't been intrigued enough to check it out before, but it's really nice inside. On such a cold day to walk in and see two fireplaces burning was a beautiful thing. I love that every thing on the menu is the same price (lunch $9) and  our delicious chicken salads were so big we couldn't finish them.

So take advantage of restaurants needing and truly appreciating your business. You can get a better reservation time and exceptional service.