Misstropolis | Table

How to Pick a Summer Wine

2009-05-27T02:02:31-05:00

This bright, forgiving, long awaited season comes and goes so fast, the start of it can even bring trepidation. Memorial Day means Labor Day is around the corner and another summer will have come and gone before we know it. But stop, bask, enjoy! Enlist the best summer wines to help you savor every sunny minute. Sommelier extraordinaire Anu Karwa, founder of Swirl Events in New York recommends the very best wines for the season.Summer’s soaring temps beg you to step away from heavy Cabernets and check out the gentler, lighter side of wine. When choosing the perfect summer wine for your outdoor party, think light, crisp, refreshing—and because people tend to drink more in the heat—lower in alcohol.

Nourish Your Relationships

2009-05-13T03:09:01-05:00

Nutritionist Renee Hill sees life through dark, leafy colored glasses. In a special column, adapted from a piece she wrote for her (very healthy) clientelle, the author illuminates the connections between taking care of ourselves through healthy foods and nurturing healthy relationships. Key to the recipe for long life she writes, is eliminating toxic ingredients and nourishing the loving ones. Think about the people in your life. Take out a piece of paper and write down the people who make you laugh, cry, think, happy and angry. Are there more people on that list who make you feel good about yourself than bad? How can you spend more time with those family and friends who make you feel full of life?

Mama’s Mac-n-Cheese Finally Grows Up

2009-05-06T02:12:22-05:00

Dawn Oates turns to Gargoyle on the Square’s meticulous chef Jason Santos for a modern turn on a Mother’s classic. But can a contemporary take on a comfort food be as comfortable as the original? Mamas take note!Some mothers will sink to great depths to keep their daughters happy, but that’s just fine with me. See, throughout my high school years, my mother would make my favorite dish for birthdays, holidays, and every special occasion imaginable. For me it was bliss. For others it was an eyesore and a heart attack waiting to happen. She called it “bacon casserole,” and although bacon was really just a minor player in the dish, from ages 14 to18, I thought it was truly the most delicious and luxurious meal on the planet.

Scrap the Barilla: Make Your Pasta from Scratch

2009-04-08T15:11:15-05:00

PASTA - it’s the food of our lives! The infinitely mutable, equitably accessible, globally talented food form that, like an old dog or a new People Magazine, is always there for you, eager to take whatever form necessary to make you feel better. But, chef in training and prolific food writer Sarah Baker explains, eating dried, supermarket pasta is like getting only the dog hair or the ads. In order to have a true pasta love affair, you have to make it yourself. Here’s how.What is it about pasta that we love so much? Certainly, it is inexpensive, filling, quick and usually foolproof. There’s a linguistic element, too, that harkens romance: the very words “tortellini” “ravioli” and “linguini” roll exotically off the tongue. But perhaps pasta’s role as the ultimate vehicle for olive oil, butter, cream and cheese trumps all that. In our house, each season features its own sauce. Winter means puttanesca; in spring we savor asparagus, morels and cream. Simple fresh tomato, basil and mozzarella are summer night perfection, and it wouldn’t be fall without pumpkin ravioli smothered in sage and brown butter.

The Secret to Perfect Sauces

2009-03-18T18:50:55-05:00

Sarah Baker, in her sixth cooking class at the Cambridge Culinary Institute, gets saucy.Shakespeare said, “The sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.” In medieval times, sauces were more than ceremony, however. They were used to disguise the taste of food, much like perfume was used to hide body odor. These days, sauces are meant to be the supporting actor: they ought to enhance food, not overpower it. For me, sauces are nostalgic: hollandaise sauce conjures up the Eggs-Benedict Christmas mornings of my childhood. And I’ll never forget the buttery polenta blanketed in Taleggio and wild mushrooms that my husband and I ate in a hillside town outside of Venice.

The Time and Place for Oysters

2009-03-05T04:38:19-05:00

There are a lot of reasons we are lucky to live in New England, and for many of us, oysters are high on the list. Whether you like yours straight up or a little more fancy, the Boston area has something for every oyster lover.We are all hip to eating seasonally and locally, and oysters express time and place more profoundly than any other ingredient I can think of. Just about all of the oysters from our local waters are crassostrea virginica—size, shape, texture and flavor are all determined by their provenance, not the species. (Belon or European, flat oysters are commercially grown in New England, but they are the exception and even their flavor is affected by the waters they are harvested from.) If you love Wellfleets, and I do, it is because of the tides, salinity of the water, temperature of that water, and the algae in the bay. Island Creeks from Duxbury, Moonstones from Rhode Island, Glidden Points from Maine, and Stoningtons from Connecticut — I love ‘em all and they proudly articulate their home turf, or surf as it were, in varying degrees of size, brininess, creaminess and even sweetness.

Did I invite You to My (Winter) BBQ?

2009-02-05T15:04:23-05:00

Grilling has never been my thing and as a result I am thankful for the very capable skills of my husband. While he mans the fire, I focus my efforts on making the perfect vinaigrette. But this division of labor has always been an irritant to my feminist side. So, it is with this desire for equality that I enter Day Five of the “Back to Basics” cooking class at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts with Steve Nill at the helm. No amount of snow and ice is going to keep this class from grilling. Barbecuing is a manly endeavor—like taking out the garbage. It dates back to the time when men were hunters and women were gatherers. Only now, instead of a woolly mammoth shot on the plains, we have pasture-raised, antibiotic-free, boneless chicken breasts bought from Whole Foods. The only hunting involved is for a parking spot on a busy Sunday.

Stewed About It: Braising for Beginners

2009-01-12T18:36:20-05:00

The author celebrates slow cooking with her class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Braising, stewing, blanquettes and fricassees… read on and learn the best cooking methods to take the chill out of January evenings.Stew is soup’s hard-working cousin - succulent, warm and hearty. Tough and unrefined at the beginning, mellowed and presentable at the end, stew is Eliza Doolittle personified. For me, it is a crowd pleaser that comes with a whiff of nostalgia.

Recession Special: Soup

2008-12-03T03:25:06-05:00

With the stock market in the pot, it’s the perfect time to make stock. Chicken stock that is, or beef or vegetable. Whether you are using up all the leftovers in the fridge or cleaning out the cupboard, Sarah Baker explains why soup is the perfect food for right now.Soup: glorious, versatile, wholesome. Smooth, refined and velvety, soup can be served in your finest china. Chunky and spicy, it can be spooned from your favorite thermos. It is cool, crisp and refreshing in the summer, warm, hearty and nourishing in the winter. Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners) puts it this way: “Soup does its loyal best, no matter what undignified conditions are imposed upon it. You don’t catch steak hanging around when you’re poor and sick, do you?“

Cracking Eggs

2008-11-17T15:39:00-05:00

Sarah Baker’s descriptions of kitchen protocol, partner cooking, master demonstrations and group meals from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts make even the Carrie Bradshaw haven’t used the kitchen for anything but book and shoe storage types among us want to enroll immediately in cooking school. This week, Sarah extolls the virtues of the simplest of staples - the egg.I have always loved eggs. Not only are they beautiful, they are fun. Once, I fried one on the streets of San Diego. They are fragile and messy, especially when they’ve found their way to the kitchen floor. They are magical—they can be transformed from a runny mess into a soufflé. They are light and fluffy in a scramble, or structured and firm in a meringue. They can be dangerous if you have high cholesterol or they have salmonella. Whether it’s Eggs Benedict smothered in Hollandaise, silky Crème Anglaise, or the elemental but perfect, soft-boiled egg on toast, nothing is as versatile, nutritious and astoundingly delicious as that simple little package: the egg.