The Bitten Word

The Leftovers | Mustard in a Bucket, Tennessee Chocolate & Kentucky Soy Sauce

Here are a few items that have caught our attention over the last month. 

Mustard in a Bucket

We were enamored with these buckets of Edmond Fallot Dijon Mustard (or Moutarde De Dijon for you Francophiles) when we spotted them while browsing at DC's Dean & Deluca one day. We were hesitant to buy it, though, because it was pricy and we'd never heard of it before.

But then, weeks later, we happened to be in Williams-Sonoma and there was the same mustard on clearance, so we bought it. In truth, we expected to pop open the tin and find it full of mustard (adorable! but also maybe gross!). Instead, packed inside, was a large jar of mustard (still adorable, but in a different way). The tin, alas, is only decorative. 

We're highlighting it here because we think this is some of the best mustard we've ever had. It's sharp but smooth, and we've been lapping it up every chance we get. 

The mustard comes from the Fallot Mustard Mill, a family-owned Burgandy company that has been making mustard since 1840. The jar says it's still made by crushing mustard seed using traditional millstones. 

Whatever they're doing is working -- the mustard is just awesome.  If you want some for yourself, you'll likely find it at one of the stores mentioned above, or you can always order it online, with or without the tin. 

Tennessee Chocolate

We were thrilled to see Food & Wine highlight Olive & Sinclair chocolate in their September issue. We spotlighted the company back in January, after sampling their chocolate on a trip home to Tennessee. It's not yet available to order online, so you Tennesseans will have to eat enough for the rest of us.

Kentucky Soy Sauce

In the same issue, Food & Wine spotlights Bourbon Barrel Foods, based in Louisville, Kentucky. The company is giving barrels traditionally used to age Kentucky bourbon a different purpose: aging soy sauce. We love the concept and look forward to trying it ourselves. Their products are available on their website. 

And that's a wrap for September!  Have a current obsession you want to share?  Something you're reading that you're especially enjoying?  Leave it in the comments!

 

Mix-and-Match Crumbles

Food Network Magazine (September 2010)

The weather's cooling off, swimsuit season has passed and fall fruit is coming in at the market.  To us, that means it's times to make crumbles -- our go-to fall and winter dessert. 

For several years, we've been making impromptu crumbles using whatever fruit we have on hand, topping it with with a mix of flour, sugar and butter (and sometimes oatmeal), and then baking it until it's nice and bubbly. The results are always good, though not always great. Our crumble topping sometimes doesn't firm up, and it often lacks a satifying "crunch."  Dinner guests, though, never seem to complain. 

So we were thrilled to see a "Mix-and-Match Crumbles" feature in this month's Food Network Magazine. Similar to the "Make Your Own" feature from Fine Cooking that we love so much (see entries on short ribs and ice cream), Food Network Mag offers a guide to creating your own crumble out of whatever nuts, grains and fruit you prefer. 

We took this recipe as an opportunity to clean out our fridge and pantry, and set off to make a Peach and Plum Crumble. 

World Peace Cookies

Bon Appétit (September 2010)

We were thrilled to see Dorie Greenspan's recipe for World Peace Cookies in this month's issue of Bon Appétit.

It wasn't that we're such big fans of World Peace Cookies (we had never had them), but we are huge fans of Dorie's cookies in general. Back in February, we spent a weekend in New York City to see friends and play a game we like to call "see how many meals we can pack into three days."

Our trip happened to coincide with CookieBar, a six-day pop-up cookie shop put on by Dorie and her son Josh in a Park Avenue salon, for Valentine's Day. We loved the concept and made it a point to visit while we were in town.

So before we get to the World Peace Cookies, here's a quick recap, seven months late, of our trip to CookieBar.

Stuffed Eggplant (Papoutsakia)

Saveur (August/September 2010)

Two years ago this week, we nominated a Crisp Tomato, Zucchini and Eggplant Bread Gratin as the dish which best captures the flavors of that "in-between season" sandwiched in the middle of summer and fall.

We do love that gratin, but we're going to have to add this Stuffed Eggplant to the list.

It's just the perfect dish for this time of year. Summer's over, according to the calendar, but the sun's still warm and it's still getting up to 90 degrees where we live. The nights, though, are cooler, and there's a tinge of color on the trees. You can feel autumn on its way.

This dish mixes the last, best hits from the summer garden with some grown-up flavors that are unmistakably autumnal.

So come along with us, and celebrate Summerfall!

Sweet and Spicy Fried Peach Pies

Fine Cooking (September 2010)

Have you ever fried a pie?

Though we've fried our fair share of proteins and veggies, pies have remained on our proverbial no-fry list. We've tasted a few fried pies. There were, of course, the old-fashioned McDonald's version when we were growing up. And Clay's great-grandmother, Annie, used to make fried apple pies all the time. We have the recipe and have talked about making it for a year now to share it with you (we'll try to do that soon).

So, although we're in no way fried pie fanatics, these Sweet and Spicy Fried Peach Pies called out to us as we were scoping out the September Fine Cooking.  Sweet AND spicy? Coated in sugar and cinnamon?  AND a peach filling?

Yes, PLEASE!

So for our friend Jim's birthday, we whipped up a double batch of these pies. 

So We Got Married....

On Saturday, we got married! 

Thank you to so many of you who have left comments here on the blog, sent us emails or written us notes over on Facebook and Twitter. It's been an emotional last week and your notes of support and cheer have made it even more special/

We thought you might like to see our wedding announcement from Sunday's New York Times. It says that we were married in our apartment, which is technically true since we're legally married in the District of Columbia and that is where our marriage license is signed.

But our wedding festivities actually took place on a farm in southern Maryland, just outside of D.C., and mostly in a barn that's pictured above (our friend William Waybourn took that lovely photo).  It was a perfect day. The setting was lovely, the weather couldn't have been better, and we were surrounded by so many people that we love.  It was overwhelming in all the right ways.

We'll share more details once we have the rest of the photos.

And for those of you who are asking, "Where's a new recipe?!", don't worry! We'll resume with our regularly scheduled program tomorrow. And we'll be frying pies!

Outstanding in the Field

Last weekend, just after we returned from the beach, we attended one of the most amazing dinners we've ever been to.

Way back in March, we -- along with four friends -- purchased tickets to an event called Outstanding in the Field. It's a touring dinner series that takes place literally in the middle of a field, at farms all across the country.  The group travels around in a vintage bus throwing dinners that highlight local farmers. The signature feature of the event is a single, very long communal table plunked down right in the middle of the farm -- you really should take a look at some of the photos on their site.

The event we attended was in Purcellville, Virginia, a short drive from D.C., on Potomac Vegetable Farms.  The chef was Anthony Chittuym, from Alexandria, VA-based Vermilion, a restaurant we've never visited (although, based on this meal, it's shot to the top of our list).

Much more about Outstanding in the Field -- including photos and the dishes we ate -- after the jump.

Momofuku Milk Bar's Crack Pie Recipe

 Bon Appétit (September 2010)

 

We're back from amazing week on the Outer Banks with friends. Hurricane Earl blew over and we had a full week of near-perfect weather.

Most of our time was spent on the beach, getting some much needed sun and rest. But we also did a fair amount of reading.  We both read The Help (which we can't recommend strongly enough) and Clay read One Day (which he loved so, so much). We also read five months of the New Yorker, a chore made infinitely easier by so many of the articles being old news. 

And we ate a lot of delicious-but-terrible-for-you food (hello, Pringles), and cooked a fair amount. We made summer vegetable lasagna with squash and eggplant from our CSA we carted down to the beach (yes, we've become the sort of people who haul their produce to the beach). We fried chicken one night, using Clay's mom's recipe. We baked some cookies (which we'll post about soon). And yes, we had our fair share of Porch Crawlers.

And -- perhaps most excitingly -- we made Crack Pie, based on the recipe from Momofuku Milk Bar.

Porch Crawlers

A Bitten Word Recipe 

Ladies and gents, it has been a busy summer!

Zach traveled a lot for work, Clay started a new job, and we planned a wedding that's happening two weeks from Saturday (!).

There's a lot we're itching to blog about. There are, of course, recipes we're eager to share (including another eggplant dish we've found that we love and a pie that will make your head explode). We also want to tell you about our experience planting our first garden this summer (spoiler alert: we're not great gardeners). And we'll share a bit about our wedding plans and festivities.

But for the moment, we're heading to the beach for a week with our friends for some much needed down time.  We're packing four months of unread New Yorkers, a whole lot of sunscreen and a big stack of food magazines.

And while we're there, we may just make Porch Crawlers.