Misstropolis | Table

Dining en Plein Air

2009-09-14T19:22:41-05:00

Outdoor entertaining is less stressful and more casual than indoors. But just because you’re more relaxed doesn’t mean your deck or patio table should be any less beautiful than the one you would set in your dining room or kitchen. Tour de France on Thayer Street in Boston has everything you will ever need for the most appetizing table settings imaginable. In honor of this beautiful September weather, Andrea Pyenson’s May article has been re-posted.When I was very young and newly married, I spent a couple of years living in Atlanta. It was a difficult adjustment for me, a buttoned-up Bostonian. Everybody there was so friendly. On my first trip home for Thanksgiving, complete with snow, I figured out the source of the north-south cultural divide. Downtown one day, darting in and out of stores, my shoulders hunched against the wind, I realized why we New Englanders had the reputation we did. We were just too cold to be warm and friendly. At least for nine or 10 months of the year.

Cooking With Wine

2009-08-24T18:40:34-05:00

Anu Karwa is a New York based wine expert and entrepreneur. Founder of the wine education and entertainment company Swirl Events, she spends her days learning everything there is to know about wines and the wine business and enchanting the guests at her Swirl events. In a series of articles originally posted on her blog Swirlsavvy, Karwa explains the keys to cooking successfully with wine. Have a favorite recipe which involves wine? Send it along!Whether it’s in a long braise, or a sauce reduced over high heat, cooking with wine can impart subtle flavor, acidity or sweetness and depth to a dish. But not all wines are created equal in the act of enhancing a recipe. When cooking with wine I implore you to step away from so-called “cooking” wines and make smart choices on what you pour into your pan.

Divas Uncork the Cure

2009-07-28T18:21:40-05:00

In honor of their 10th anniversary, the nationally heralded, collectively admired wine club Divas Uncorked will host Divas Uncork the Cure, a four day wine and food festival on Martha’s Vineyard. For the first time, the Divas have partnered with Susan G. Komen to promote breast cancer prevention. Misstropolis spoke with one of the original Divas, Karen Holmes Ward, uncorking an even greater appreciation for the sisters who sip. Tune in next week to hear Ward’s expert advice on corking, gifting and the vastly different buying styles of women and men. Karen Holmes Ward is a sister who sips. As one of the founding members of Divas Uncorked she champions women in the wine business, extends wine education and appreciation to new audiences, and believes firmly that despite common perceptions, wine events do not have to be “Frasier and Niles Crane” affairs. “We call ourselves wine savvy,“ she jokes, “not wine snobby.“ Misstropolis spoke with Ward after she returned from Martha’s Vineyard where she had been checking in on preparations for Divas Uncork the Cure, a four day food and wine festival which will run from August 6 - 9, 2009.

The Rise and Return of Lambrusco

2009-07-08T03:45:21-05:00

Expert sommelier and Founder of Swirl Events, Anu Karwa often asks her guests to compare wines to celebrities - a fun way to pinpoint dominant characteristics and crystallize abstract nuances in a wine’s flavor. It was inevitable therefore that Misstropolis editors would want to ponder who would compare to Karwa’s focus here - Lambrusco. Best when young, fizzy and sweet, we found Lambrusco to be the wine equivalent of True Blood’s Sookie Stackhouse. Both have pasts they would mostly like to forget and both have created new versions of themselves, all the richer for the lessons of the past. With strong flavors of ripe fruit and priced under $16 a bottle, Lambrusco - like Sookie - can turn a summer night into a delicious, unpredictable adventure.While you may cringe remembering the sparkling, sweet Riunite (on ice, as the ads cheerfully suggested) that made it “famous”, Lambrusco is making a comeback. And in its latest incarnation it’s a highly welcome return.

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.