Fusilli with Veal and Cream

Friday 22 November

While cooking all day for tomorrow's feast, Holt was rootling in the freezer and found a patty of veal scraps left from butchering our last veal breast, and a bagful of smoked plum tomatoes from who knows when.  So Barbara let him rest a while and made up a recipe on the spur of the moment for dinner. 

First, a pot went on the boil for fusilli.  She minced the veal scraps with a chef's knife and browned them in butter, adding the similarly minced smoked tomatoes and a big splash of tomato paste to break down as soon as the meat lost all its pink.  Then she deglazed with veal stock (again, fruit of the last veal breast) and finally added a big pour of heavy cream.  That simmered down until it was thick and the fusilli were done; they all got tossed in the pan, and topped with grated pecorino romano.

And lo, it tasted as if it were cooked by a nonna in Emilia-Romagna, instead of like something that had been at the back of the freezer for ever.

Birthday at Boca

Wednesday 20 November

We've dined at each of Boca's many incarnations, starting with its humble beginnings in Northside and its buzzy Oakley venue.  Now they've taken over the former home of the Maisonette, the long-gone five-star bastion of traditional French food.  We'd been there once or twice when we were new to Cincinnati, and enjoyed it for what it was - old fashioned, lush, even a little stuffy.  That Boca has claimed this storied space indicates that it's aiming high, so we wanted to see just how high they could go.

We were seated in the center of the space, right under that Phantom of the Opera chandelier. 

You need some sparkler for a birthday, so we got an excellent rosé cava, Raventós i Blanc De Nit, to start off; its mauve color reminded us of the great cavas we'd enjoyed in Tarragona. 

Our appetizers were hamachi crudo, paired beautifully with silky avocado, grapefruit, shishito and ponzu; and beef shortrib tartare with very palpable black truffle and a little poached quail egg among its greens.

Mains were also inventive but solid: crisp-skinned loup de mer (i.e. branzino, or sea bass), with bacon, potatoes, fennel, and a tarragon vin blanc; and a tender, juicy braised pork shank from celebrity butcher Pat LaFrieda, served with potato purée and little roast vegetable dice.  We got a glass of Chanson pinot noir le Bourgogne to go with the pork.

And since it was a birthday, we had to have a sweet - a toothsome terrine of chocolate with pistachio nuts and salt (salt on sweet is the flavor of the month all this year).

Boca has some nice touches - the silver cellar of crystalline salt on the table, though the dishes were perfectly salted; the sauce spoons; the comfortable couches under the chandelier.  It also has features that are so of-the-moment that we will laugh at them very soon: the requisite family-style long table with uncomfortable high chairs, or the counter facing into the open kitchen so you can watch chefs plate your food with tweezers and foam.

Then there are things that are just ill-thought-out.  Boca charges for bread (admittedly it's Blue Oven, but come on) and has no busboys, so we and other tables had to sit with our dirty dishes on the table for an unacceptably long time until our waiter got around to clearing. 

What's more, the tables on either side of us got things that weren't on the menu and big productions involving the chef and a circle of assistants proffering ingredients.  So we ended up feeling that Boca had an in crowd, and as we weren't it, we're unlikely to go back any time soon.

Sole with Indian Spiced Greens

Tuesday 19 November

Freezing nights are in the forecast, so Barbara went out and harvested her rainbow chard, kale, a couple of little re-seeded bok choy, and a few leaves of escarole so we could make Madhur Jaffrey's spiced greens.  They made a lovely bed for steaming fillets of sole seasoned with pimentón de la Vera.

That night Barbara saw part of the film "Pride & Joy" about Southern food.  It featured one Martha Hawkins of Montgomery, Alabama; she had fed the Selma marchers as a girl, and loved using fresh food so she could "put some love on it."  Having picked our greens after dark, by flashlight, and from under the bank of autumn leaves she piled on top of them on Saturday to keep them warm, Barbara knows how she feels.

Soup, Salad, Sandwich

Monday 18 November

Holt stayed home to work today, so in the intervals he could chop up the last harvest of our own wild and hairy garden fennel and subdue it into another batch of fennel vichyssoise.

To accompany it, our garden carrots went into a Chez Panisse Moroccan carrot salad.

And since we still needed some protein, we poached a couple of eggs and piled them on top of sliced Schad's ham on Holt's bran toast.  A dollop of Friday's sorrel sauce made them sort of Florentine. 

Soup, salad, sandwich sounds so blah; but it's mostly from our own kitchen and garden, so actually flavorsome and satisfying.

Enoteca Emilia

Sunday 17 November

Valeria braved the tornado warnings and took us and Lauren out to dinner at Emilia with tomorrow's speaker, Athena.  We haven't been here for a while, and the food has definitely improved.

Along with a bottle of dark red Arcangelo Salice Salentino 2010, appetizers were shared across the table: wild-caught (!) and very tender octopus with little potatoes and prosciutto hash; meatball "sliders" with red and green sauce; unctuous whipped ricotta with bagna cauda and bruschette; and again those odd little figs stuffed with 'nduja sausage, wrapped in bacon, and sloshed with red sauce.

Our mains were a mighty and flavorful osso bucco (including the marrow!) with excellent polenta and sour cherries; and a plate of tender ricotta gnocchi with lamb ragu and slices of green apple; an interesting meld of flavors. 

Emilia gave us tasty food, friendly service, and didn't bust the departmental bank.  Which is all you can ask of a restaurant on a dark and stormy night.