Winnie explained why the dough should be thicker in the middle:

and the dough was busily being folded, crimped, and sealed.

There were food writers to recognize (including this former Gourmet staffer rocking a yellow apron),

lively shrimp,

and pans at the ready for dumpling magic.

The dumplings nestled close in their pans,

before the momentous flip and a tap.

And we all passed the scallion sauce and the beautiful dumplings along the long table of colorful plates.

I had to duck out of Winnie’s to head over to Kombit restaurant on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn, meeting Daryn (not pictured), Dave, Jessica, and Nick for the energy of this Haitian gathering place—we were taken aback by the happy noise and prodigious amount of food.

Goat, pork, beans and rice, and sweet potato cakes are only part of the appeal—there was a band we had to try and talk over, a film crew, and a really nice sense of community at the bar and with the staff.

Saturday morning, I stopped to congratulate the Waffle Truck (@waffletruck) on their win over Bobby Flay during the week, and I ordered my usual: a Liège wafel with spekuloos.

Meeting up with my friend Jenne, she chose an Asia Dog from the Brooklyn Flea vendors after we had a Red Hook Lobster Pound roll, of course,

and someone from the new Milk Truck (@milktrucknyc) staff held their “classic with a twist” sandwich for me; with its champagne-soaked onions, two kinds of cheese, and homemade mustard, I cannot wait until their truck opens at month’s end.

For now, I’ll content myself with their sandwiches at the Brooklyn Flea near the new Greek food vendor, Anthi, who tempted me with his Galaktobounko. “It’s like flan,” he assured me; in fact, with a beautiful creme middle with a crispy baklava-like top and a soft dough on the bottom, it might be better. And it may have brought me luck as I happened upon a birthday party for a friend of a friend that night.

Sunday morning began with a blindfold walk with Rosie and Faris from Union Square to Times Square full of misadventures (adore these two) as a group of us meandered toward our destination with burgundy blindfolds and tentative steps crossing streets,

and continued with Jessica reading her honest poetry (“I want poets to have something at stake”) at Zinc Bar that night.

This afternoon, I cooked skate wing with the bone (it’s really cartilage, but referred to as “the bone”) in duck fat for a few minutes on each side, then reduced wine and thickened the reduction sauce with butter, before blooming capers to sprinkle atop the skate and the baby sprouts from Evolutionary Organics at the farmers’ market. I find a Gavi white wine perfect for this classic dish.

With newfound knowledge about dumpling dough, inspiration from visiting friends (it’s always so nice to see Dave) and their artistic proofs (Jessica, congratulations again on the reading, and Jenne, good luck as this MFA semester begins), I feel ready to begin the week…

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This is music for you to join me, since you continue to startle me by listening to these mixes. For our dance card today, a track (full list below) that trumps Vampire Weekend, another that borrows liberally from The Cure, a song to Twist to (let’s bring that dance back, shall we?), a modern lullaby (“Harmony”), songs that bloom in the middle, and one for everyone who lives somewhere in the bloomin’ middle of a country.

“Albatross” – Besnard Lakes
“Days” – Sambassadeur
“Cranberry” – The Ruby Suns
“When Goodness Galls” – Northern Portrait
“Lovers’ Carvings” – Bibio
“Gods and Gentlemen” – Drink Up Buttercup
“Oh Suzanne” – French Kissing
“Harmony To My Heartbeat” – Sally Seltmann
“Something, Somewhere, Sometime” – Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore
“A Funeral Dressed As a Birthday” – We Are The Willows
“let go” – Jj

Music I need to listen to next?

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A sauté pan, a saucier pan, and a big pot. These are my only pots and pans, all three are stainless steel. They have the look of being loved; that’s the point. (When I road trip somewhere for a few weeks, I bring the sauté pan.) I don’t list my knives below, but it’s the Global sankotu I like best.

Above the stove are the things I reach for most:

Hand blender (I have a standing mixer and rarely use it), colander, 14 cup food processor, secret recipe binder. It’s best to keep oils and vinegar away from light; I have a good olive oil, a whatever olive oil, sherry vinegar, and balsamic. I keep them in their original bottles.

And then there are the baking pans:

A few muffin tins, various sizes, cake pans (2 8″ and 4 9″), 2 tart pans with removable bottoms, springform pan in 6″, 8″, 9″, bundt pan, angel food cake pan with removable bottom, double boiler, bread pan, pasta machine with a hand crank and fettucine/spaghetti attachment.

The randoms (including my favorite tool):

I’m very fond of this digital kitchen scale, which is important for baking measurements, and the knife sharpener; I inherited the Belgian waffle maker, occasionally use the pizzelle maker, more occasionally use the tortilla press, and invent ways to use the best tool in my kitchen, the small torch (I peel tomatoes with it).

These fill the drawer next to the stove:

An immersion blender, corkscrew, bottle opener (upcycled from a bike chain), whisk, lighter, small spatula (I dislike the big ones, which feel clumsy to me), potato masher, measuring spoons, scissors, can opener, vegetable peeler, bizarre blue silicone thumb grip for pulling pans out of the oven that works marvelously well, offset spatula (not just for cakes—this is better than a fish spatula for turning things), microplane in the regular grating grade, and tongs (these become an extension of your arms, truly; find ones with a clasp mechanism).

I use these less often and keep them in a bag near the fondue pot on a high shelf:

A zester, two sizes of biscuit cutters, an oven temperature gauge, a pasta fluter, kitchen tweezers (the best for pin bones in salmon), chocolate prongs, citrus juicer, plastic mandoline (much easier than the complicated stands, I’m using this more and more lately for fennel and sunchokes).

What’s in your kitchen drawers?

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and then sliced the rest of the poached pear over a bowl of oats this morning, thinking about all that has happened in the past month.

This afternoon, as big snowflakes fell, I made one of my comfort foods—a portobello mushroom roasted with garlic and sun-dried tomatoes, on top of spinach and latkes with goat cheese. The latkes I made with purple potatoes (I have a weakness for purple foods), and their crispiness offsets the silky mushroom that emerges from the oven in a pool of crackling, popping butter.

I have resolved that in 2010 kthread cooks, my online cooking video series, will return. Here’s how to make this portobello dish that I call “mushaboom” in one of the earliest episodes from February 2008 (see all 28 episodes):

Thoughts on what I might cook for the next episode?

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And so, yesterday in the rain, I had sunny squash in a pasta that’s friendly to additions—while farfalle cooked (the shape matches all those bow ties at summer weddings), I sautéed sliced squash (2 baby squash per person) over medium-high heat until blistered, then halved and added the cherry tomatoes still left (a handful), taking the pan off the heat.

Stir the al dente pasta into the mix, add pesto if you like (1 cup packed basil leaves, 1/3 cup pine nuts, 1/3 cup Parmesan, 1 clove garlic in a food processor, drizzling in 4 tablespoons of olive oil), and sneak in flaked tuna in olive oil to up the umami, if you like (I do).

The tomatoes will burst like water balloons in your mouth, and the pasta holds nicely into the afternoon should the clouds be swept away and a neighborhood block party beckon…

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You can skip my Julia monologuing, and begin by making mayonnaise by processing one egg for ten seconds, then slowly drizzling in 1 cup of vegetable oil while the machine is running. Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice and season to taste; it will keep for a week chilled. Then, dice mushrooms (I use black trumpet here) and cook with 1 teaspoon of oil on med-high heat until they release their juices—about 5 minutes. Remove from pan, turn heat to medium and add two eggs, whisked (reserve one eggshell), and a tablespoon of heavy cream; gently fold eggs until softly scrambled—2-3 minutes. Spoon eggs back into eggshell and then around it on the plate; serve with mayonnaise and with potatoes, if you like (I sautéed baby potatoes and amaranth leaves with garlic).

Bon appétit!

reading recommendation: My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

listening recommendation: the snappy “French Chef” opening theme

dance recommendation: waltz for Julia and Paul

eggs for Julia wallpaper on Flickr

drink pairing: beer, your choice

salt recommendation: Fleur de sel, of course (kosher in a pinch)

Your Julia memories?

More kthread cooks episodes on this page and on the Vimeo channel.

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Catching up on her recent travels (she journeys to places like Bangkok and Taipei), we spent a long time talking about the state of translation online, and this was after I was able to turn a tricky ingredient into something palatable.

Solana bravely tried the sautéed baby chanterelles and decided she does, sometimes, like mushrooms. We also stirred in baby leeks more slender than scallions (that have a flavor less sweet than ramps and closer to lemon) and corn browned in the pan along with a bit of butter and Parmesan.

As favorite dinner guests do, she soaped the dishes while we let chopped rhubarb simmer with sugar and I whipped cream to dollop on top. Solana told me we had made red porridge, inadvertently borrowing from her Danish culinary traditions, but it all seemed to make sense in this new kitchen where I am making new traditions…

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If you should find nettles, I like to buy two bags/bundles (about ~1/2 packed cup of leaves in each).

Use the first to make nettle pesto: blanch the leaves (take them off the stem with gloves or a paper towel, they sting a little) for a minute, then drain and dry. Pulse 1 clove garlic in food processor until minced, add the nettles, 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan, and 1/4 cup of pine nuts. I like the pesto on strozzapreti (the pasta shape that means “strangled priests”), below.

Then, with the other bundle of nettles, make your favorite brothy soup (vegetable stock, garlic, onion, diced potatoes are a nice base), stir in the nettles, and top with some of the remaining pesto (without the pine nuts, the pesto becomes a pistou), perfect for the drizzly weather we’ve had in Brooklyn lately…

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For a simple lunch for one, start by cooking a third of a pasta box (spaghetti is traditional here) to al dente in a pot while 1 inch of diced guanciale renders (guanciale, made from jowls, has a subtler flavor than bacon) with a little olive oil in another pan, and whisk a single egg in a small bowl with a tablespoon of Pecorino Romano (or Parmesan) and a little more olive oil.

Drain the pasta, toss in pan with the rendered fat (remove guanciale to separate plate), and quickly pour the egg/cheese mixture on top, stir with tongs to coat. Plate and sprinkle with guanciale, season.

If you feel so inclined (I always do), nestle a crowning yolk on top of the glistening tangle.

One of the simplest pastas, I find carbonara deeply satisfying—an honest recipe for the middle, or beginning, or end of any week…

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the gourmet shop in Cambridge where Charcutier (what a beautiful title) Leah Mojer crafts housemade rillettes, pâté, and a guanciale I could not resist when I visited on Friday.

I was in town for my last event with Knight Foundation, a gathering of the Knight News Challenge winners at MIT:

where I managed to convince some two hundred in attendance to wear Knight Pulse sweatbands and unveiled new pieces of the Pulse site—much more on that in a later post, where I’ll share what I learned this past year starting a niche online community space.

Some of my favorite people (including new friend Catherine) were in that number at MIT, and on Thursday night, I had dinner with them (Ethan, David, Catherine, Kevin) at Asmara.

Ethan explains the wonderful Eritrean food we ordered (I should say we actually let Ethan order and, like everything Ethan does, the order was thoughtful and nicely done):

My favorite was the lamb with jute plant (we ordered another), and like the spongy injera bread that serves as utensil in this cuisine, I felt my mind expanding as we talked of global politics, poison (not the band), and functional flows of local brain power. With this table of frequent flyers, it was so nice to land in this comfy restaurant and hear travel adventures narrated and future schemes plotted…

Being Cambridge, my mind also tried to bend around understanding why the buildings are numbered as well as named and around Erik Demaine‘s work with computational origami (he’ll tell you simply that he likes algorithms). Erik is an extraordinary person (kind and the youngest professor in MIT history) and he folds balloons into octahedrons:

Driving out of the Cambridge rain, past the Charles River, and toward the smell of the Atlantic Ocean, I made sure these petit noirs from Formaggio Kitchen were tucked away,

delivering them to Matt and Maia’s kitchen in Newport, RI (fanciful chocolate for a lovely, artistic couple) on the way back to Brooklyn, where we’ll make charcuterie and chocolates and inflate balloons (a caveat that octahedrons are beyond me) now that the boxes are unpacked and neighborhood explorations begin in earnest…

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We begin with the edges of classic grilled cheese with cheddar on pane toscano for the last day of Grilled Cheese Month.

And the crunchy crusts that I like very brown (the butter makes for lacy sides).

It glints a little too,

and stands, dramatically, waiting for next year’s celebrations (we’ll return to it before then, though)…

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I’d pair this with a Sazerac on a Wednesday—

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Between thick slices of sourdough, with sautéed shallots, here is Tuesday night dinner—

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As it keeps, new butter weeps into the parchment paper wrapper—throwing off milk droplets—and it melts gracefully into warm bread with a crispy crust.

Steadying food for a morning after floating through courses at Sra. Martinez in the Miami Design District last night with Jessica, who is one of my favorite people to explore menus with:

Look beyond the cheese plate (Manchego, Valderon, Murcia al Vino) to the crispy artichokes, quartered with their stems and just right with a Lavender Sidecar—a reminder that something fried with a light touch is a good beginning to a series of small plates,

and then there was a salad with dark roasted beets (think how beautiful this would be with Chioggias), purpled apple slices (I imagine, like the Murcia cheese, soaked in wine), a piped star of blue cheese and almonds.

The kitchen sent out spiced corn, a vegetable dish to rival the beets (don’t bother with the brussels or the sweet potatoes on the menu), and then a chocolate cake that, as Jess explains, we saved until most of the yogurt ice cream had melted into the accompanying basil oil and tomato marmalade—that, like Miami at its best, was strangely beautiful and a surprise…

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While I determined how I would “conduct [my] own experiment,” she tried the house slaw, as brightly colored as South Beach and slightly tangy. Like a house salad or wine, house slaw might be the measure of a sandwich shop.

I trusted this maker to with his choice of provolone for my experiment, and he told us how his grandmother’s fork always circles his wrist:

Not needing forks after the slaw, Holly and I talked of serious food connections as we picked up our sandwiches—renegade dairy rumors, the current focus of Miami food scenesters, and how to construct a life in this tropical place with artistry and intention.

And last night, the experimentation continued at the cottage, as I spread all the vegetables on the kitchen counter as possibilities:

Deciding against twisting utensils into jewelry, I ordered the materials and began adding colors to the pan.

First, the green and white of chopped leeks, then the brown and beige of thick Maitake slices; next, green and yellow squash semicircles, stems of rainbow chard and their leafy tops, kale, crimson tomatoes, and, finally, garlic chives joined the quodlibet.

Crowned with crisp, crenellated edges of Maitake (appropriately, as the mushroom may fortify the body and prevent disease) and a few drops of Tamari, the plate proved the hypothesis that local vegetables grown together need only a gentle stir and medium heat to combine into a dinner (like yesterday’s lunch) that bears repeating—

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