cHocolate, cReaM puFFs & OpeRa

Verdi, pastries and claymation. Sigh.

From the series "Opera Imaginaire" (1993)
Directed by Guionne Leroy & Pascal Roulin

All The Trimmings (Part 2)

This summer my dear friend Ruth made a lot of pies on her native island of Vinalhaven, located two hours off the coast of Maine, using the wild berries of the island and her family's legendary crust recipe, which, along with her tour de main, won her the hearts of many local market goers. Pictured above are the pies she made for her family's Thanksgiving feast, which I was lucky enough to attend for the second yearin a row. I had no difficulty finding room for slices of all three after the turkey and fixings. And her raw apple pie even quelled my inner voice's resolute skepticism. To make matters more American, we headed west towards Boulder at the crack of dawn the next morning. We had ourselves a picnic on the Iowa banks of the Mississppi at noon with the leftovers of the previous day and enjoyed some more of them in North Platte, Nebraska a few hours later. On the road, eating turkey and listening to Bruce Springsteen; we did not drive through the Badlands but The Boss painted us a fine picture.

hUitRes+mOuLesFritEs=deLiCiEuX

The Big Boss of the North shucked all 24 of these oysters in a record seven minutes. Bottles were popped by minute eight of the evening and by minute 27 the mussels and sweet potato fries were on the table. Now that's what I call delicious.

wHat's CookinG graNdma?

I did a quick two-step when I read about this site in this month's issue of Gourmet magazine. Like peaches and cream.