September was a full month when it came to culinary activities. It started with a culinary event to benefit the Green City Market in Chicago. It was held at Bill Kurtis and Donna La Pietra’s country estate, like usual, which has acres and acres of magnificent garden’s and a beautiful stately home. Wendi, Kathy, and Lorel helped out at my table and we served Chocolate Budino’s with Pear Compote. The pears were from Peter Klein’s farm, Seedlings, in Michigan. I brought my husband and the girls so they could frolic around the grounds, even though it was a pretty buggy hot, night. But we had fun sampling all the other chefs dishes, chatting up guests, smiling for the camera and swatting mosquitoes. The garden’s highlights were the trellis of cherry tomatoes, the raspberry bushes ready for picking, their heirloom apple orchard, and the English Walled Garden with it’s fragrant hedgerow of boxwood bushes.
Then there was a trip to San Francisco to make dessert for 150 people for a James Beard Foundation fund raising dinner at the St. Regis hotel. 5 woman chefs were brought together there, and 20 dinners were going on across the country that same night to celebrate the James Beard Foundation’s Taste of America, celebrating American cuisine. I brought my son Gio along, so he put on his chef coat and helped plate up every course. I brought chocolate pudding (10 gallons of it to be exact) and served it with tiny chocolate espresso cookies, whipped cream and mini malted milk balls.
The next morning we walked to William Sonoma where I had 2 demos with book signings. And since I was in San Francisco, my co-writer for Chocolate and Vanilla, Lisa Weiss, was there and for the first time we could do a signing together! The demo recipes were Vanilla Buttermilk Panna Cotta and Chocolate Madeleines. Of course, I had my Julia Child madeleine pans with me, in my carry-on always.
Then Gio and I drove up to Napa and spent a couple days doing what I’d always dreamed of: working at a winery during crush, the time when the grapes are harvested and crushed for their juice to start the years vintage. We were staying and working at the beautiful Staglin’s Vineyard, (www.staglinfamily.com) a magnificent estate growing 5 varieties of grapes organically who’s wines are considered the ultimate luxury brand. They are consistently rated among the top wines in the world by both U.S. and European writers. Their 2002 Cabernet was rated the #9 Wine in the World by the Wine Spectator and at the same time, rated equal to First Growths, Haut Brion and Lafitte by Jancis Robinson in the U.K. Gio seemed to love all the sorting, machinery, and chemistry. We both loved working with “the guys”, a group of maybe 15 men who, by hand, separate the raisins from the juice laden grapes for crushing. At least on that day that’s what they were doing. Sometimes they’re pruning or planting…just working the vineyard for what ever it needs.
The days we were there we were sorting tiny cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. They looked more like blueberries at first glance, being smaller than I expected. Gio liked it so much he asked if he could go back next summer for 2 weeks instead of sleep away camp. So I’ll work on setting that up…or maybe even setting it up at a vineyard in Italy next year.
I got to judge the annual Deerfield Farmer’s Market Apple Pie contest again this year. I love seeing all the pies, about 20 in all, and the grandmother’s who baked pies with their grand children, which is probably a third of the entries. The winner was Julia Eshkonian of Deerfield, who made the pie not to compete really, but just to give the village more pies to sell off at the end to raise money. If you want to see photos go to here
Home Cooking
Stuff I cooked this month that stood out were a big batch of ratatouille to help use up the eggplant the girls picked at Didiers Farm in Buffalo Grove, Il. And the yellow squash and peppers from our home garden’s last offerings. I made corn soup with lots of bacon. We also picked bushels of tomatoes and so one day was a tomato sauce day. I had the girls purée the tomatoes in the food processor with me, before they went into the pot. I also made a big gratin dish of roasted eggplant and rigatoni that seemed to last for days.
Meals Out
I had a delicious meal at North Pond café with a couple chef friends. I especially loved an appetizer we had of steak and eggs. It was a scrumptious slices of rare on the inside, charred and crusty on the outside beef with a poached egg on top. That’s one of the signature things I love about Bruce Sherman, the chef there. He seems to do poached eggs on things and I find it always makes a dish better, whether it’s a salad, a piece of meat or a sandwich. One time he made a frissée salad with a poached duck egg on top and I’ve never forgotten it, from I think 7 years ago.
Belinda Chang, wine-girl extraordinaire, and I had done a wine workshop at the Windy City Wine Festival. It was an outdoor event of tastings and talks all weekend and we were 2 of the featured “experts”. So afterwards we ate at The Gage on Michigan Avenue in Chicago with Jeffrey and Jimmy. We had their terrific Scotch Eggs, some great asparagus, Spicy Gazpacho with yellow tomatoes, Giant Noodle Soup…really out of the 12 or so dishes we had I don’t think there was a dud in the bunch. All way yummy…and a flight of rosés to drink, my favorite!