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New material is added to this site all the time. Some of it (Best of Show and Feast Reports) are always posted to the frint page. But all the many pages of "backstory" about ingredients and markets and what-have-you never get promoted to the front page. You see them through their links, but you can also see what's new by clicking on the Recent Posts link in the menu beneath your username in the left sidebar.

Our quest for more goodies for the Old Colony Club's annual Past Presidents Night gala brought us to the Quechee VT/Hanover, NH area for the trifecta: the waxed two-pound wheel of Cabot sharp cheddar at the Cabot Store, the King Arthur Flour Company Baker's Store, and the excellent and comprehensive cheese counter at the Hanover Food Coop.

I achieved all my party-related objectives in short order, so we went exploring through the mountains north of Woodstock as far as the Barre quarrylands, then west to the Connecticut River.

At sundown we set out for dinner and home. We had been to Three Tomatoes Trattoria before, but the last time we got stuck behind a belly-dancing team (I'm not kidding) and that table of 10 made service slow for us, as we shared a server. But we knew the trouble was timing, not quality, so we gave it another chance last night, and I am glad we did.

Three Tomatoes makes a special effort to support local farming, as do many restaurants in that area. I usually like to eat light before the long drive home, so this time I contented myself with their Wood Oven Baked Burrata from the Small Plates part of the menu.

A Burrata is a wonderful invention, until very recently unavailable in this country unless you knew someone who could fly it over from Italy.

It's just three weeks until the Old Colony Club's annual formal Past Presidents Night gala, so I had to score some elegant, eclectic, edible oddities to set out. We had long been planning an expedition to Pemaquid Point, near Damariscotta, so it was imperative to include the famous Morse's Sauerkraut on the itinerary.

Morse's has grown far beyond the humble Kraut House (Est. 1918). Under the ownership of Jackie and David, it has grown to include an astonishing array of German delicacies, cheeses, fine meats like Broadbent ham and sausage products, and all kinds of things to serve them on and with, all in addition to their flagship fresh sauerkraut and pickles.  

What did we find?  An Usinger's Smoked Liverwurst and my favorite Maine Mustard Pickles to go with it, some pumpernickel, rye, and other bases for canapes, a variety of interesting crackers, red and green olives, a Bavarian mustard, a couple of their brilliant beet-colored pickled eggs, and a three-pack of Underberg digestive bitters for those who cannot help themselves against the array of goodies we set out.

On Friday night, my friends at the Old Colony Club toasted Scottish poet Robert Burns in style with Scotch and a Haggis.

It's great to have friends who can get past whatever calumnies they have heard about this famous dish of Scotland and give it a fair try. It is rich and savory, seasoned with nutmeg and other spices and filled with oats that soak up the flavors and lighten the "pudding".

As Burns toasted the Haggis:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak yer place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my airm....

There is more to Address to a Haggis, which you can read here. The next time you serve a haggis, you might address it thus, or you might just stab it with your dirk and have at it with crackers and Scotch whiskey!

Have you had a haggis experience? Tell us about it through the Comments link below.

It's snowing this morning, so instead of being a hundred miles from home by breakfast time, we were snowbound. Fortunately we had laid in provisions for a nice, simple  brunch that took about 15 minutes of time in the kitchen:

• Bound for Glory Vermont Cheddar from  The Cheese Shop
• A Poached Salmon, served warm with
•  Jumbo Shrimp poached with the salmon, and
• A simple Dill-Boursin Cheese Sauce that I invented when I discovered I had no more heavy cream.
• For tea, Lorna had her favorite Anastasia Tea and I had a smoky Lapsang Souchong.

This simple brunch took almost no effort to prepare. I keep my clarified court-bouillon in the fridge, so the poaching the salmon and shrimp was a simple matter of putting it in a just-big-enough pot, covering with the cold court-bouillon, and bringing to just short of the boil. Instead of letting it cool all the way, I let it sit there while I made the sauce, a five-minute affair.

To make the sauce, I melted a tablespoon of butter and added as much flour to make a roux, added some milk to make a thin white sauce, added about a tablespoon of dried dill, then about a half of a small shallot-and-chive Boursin cheese. The cheese melted into the white sauce, thickening it nicely.

On saturday we went to the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, and took advantage of the opportunity to meander downriver to Old Saybrook.

We arrived at the museum before noon, while admission was still free, and so did everyone else. We were right behind a largish group being led by a knowledgeable docent who was no louder than necessary for her job, but too loud for us, so we took refuge in the Museum Cafe.

We go to a lot of museums, especially art museums, and in our experience the cafe is often disappointing, offering little more than Saran-wrapped day-old tuna-fish sammidges and plastic bottles of Pepsi. Fortunately this seems to be changing as more and more museums recognize that walking around and learning for a few hours can make you tired and hungry. A good dining experience can turn an exhausting afternoon into a pleasurable visit that warrants a return visit. 

We were very pleasantly surprised to see that the Cafe on the Park is excellent! It doesn't have a lot, but what it has is very good and artfully presented. We each got the quiche du jour, an asparagus and Brie quiche served in a point of a white triangular plate, with the rest of the plate filled with a delicious salad (not ice-box cold iceberg lettuce) with a proper raspberry vinaigrette (not gunky-sweet) and two cheery cherry tomatoes balancing the corners.

I love Salmon, especially the milder Atlantic Salmon. We have salmon for dinner at least once a week, so I am always interested in finding new preparations.

I found this one in Favourite Irish Recipes. The Irish and salmon go way back. The "King of Fishes" figures prominently in Irish folklore, and in the cuisine of that island nation as well. This is a simple and delicious way to prepare it: in a buttered pan in a moderate oven for about 15-20 minutes for 3/4 of a pound, with a little sliced onion and parsley, and some cider and cream. I had Jersey Cow Cream from Vermont and some old-fashioned hard cider from a jug in the cellar. The fish was delicious, especially washed down with a little more of that cider.

The Poles have a saying that a fish should swim "once in water, once in butter, and once in wine", the last of which is in your belly. I humbly propose that an Irish-style salmon can do very well indeed if his last swim is in hard cider from the cellar!

For the last of our four Exploring Italy feasts, we discovered Naples and Campania. All three wines were traditional to Campania, based on the ancient and under-appreciated Aglianico grape.

Antipasti, with a Mastroberardino Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio:

• Polpo alla Luciana (marinated Octopus)
• Marinated Olives
• Fritto di Mozzarella
• Wine Biscuits and Fennel Taralli
• Two pizzas: a Pizza alla Napolitana (tomatoes, mozzarella, anchovies) and a Pizza alla Gamberi (garlic,  shrimp, and bay scallops)

The Pasta, with a spicy, delicious Aglianico di Taburna 2008:

• Fusilli Aglio e Olio - a simple olive oil and garlic sauce for the pasta, with no tomatoes

The Main Course, with a fabulous Feudi di San Gregorio Taurasi 2004.

• Peperoni Ripieni (bell peppers stuffed with rice, mozzarella, and hard-cooked egg)
• The Porchetta! My all-time favorite dinner... courtesy of my brother Bill. Follow the link to see his excellent little treatise on Porchetta.

Dessert was not Italian - this being my birthday, Annette made her special mincemeat pie with her homemade green tomato mincemeat - my favorite!

WINE NOTES: It was something of an adventure getting the wines for this feast.

We did not travel far this weekend. My siblings hosted a birthday party for me, and it was incredible. There were many wonderful things, all made by various brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and in-laws.

It isn't really fair (or accurate) to select one above all others for Best of Show, except that my niece Mary went above and beyond the call of duty with her fabulous Rainbow Cake. This wins points on so many levels:

• This was a grown-up recreation of the bestest birthday cake ever, made by my mom when I turned seven and then recreated as a surprise when I turned 30 - so it gets points for honoring family tradition.  
• The original was some sort of Jell-O based thing that would not really work for Saturday's crowd, so Mary had to think beyond the recipe while honoring tradition.
• The cake required creativity and planning to keep the colors separate and harmonious: she created layers of warm colors and cool colors so it would be attractive as well as colorful.
• The decorating was perfect, with a simple white icing accented by fruity-flavored colored sprinkles (not jimmies - something better) and its identity as a Rainbow Cake had to be a surprise.
• It required technique in making, baking, and decorating, and confidence to commit to something new and untried.

I was never so happily surprised to see a birthday cake in my life. Bravo, Mary Rita! 

Also featured at my birthday party was this irresistible honorable mention: The Flaming Pig, filled with burning brandy on which is broiling a chourico (and then a linguica, another chourico, and then a couple of Italian sausages...).  All the menfolk had to assist in this particular culinary endeavor.

I had discovered this elegant bit of grillware at the Continental Market in New Bedford. I got a couple of them, one of which now lives at a cottage on Plymouth Long Beach, and this charming specimen became a Yankee Swap gift at a family Christmas Eve event, to reappear at what may be the only outdoor grilling event ever held on my January birthday.

The Continental Market is on Sawyer Street in New Bedford, just off Acushnet Ave. While you are there, go to the meat counter in the back, where you can get whole and half Country Hams - I haven't seen those for sale anywhere else in New England.  

Honestly, who could resist this plump pyrotechnic porcelain porker with his winsome smile and his gift of hot grilled sausage?

We were exploring Rhode Island west of I-295 when we stopped for lunch at the Gentleman Farmer Diner on Rte 44 between Harmony and Chepachet. I had been thinking about Rhode Island local favorites since our Christmas Day jaunt down to Point Judith, where we saw the clam shacks and Del's Frozen Lemonade stands shuttered for winter, looking forlorn.

There was nothing about the Gentleman Farmer that particularly called out "Local Favorites Here!". It's just like many other comfortable, humble diners in that part of the state. But we were hungry and it looked sanitary, so we pulled in.

It didn't take long for me to find my lunch: an NYS Wiener. What's an NYS Wiener? It's not a hot dog, which was right below it on the menu for maybe 50 cents more. But it is certainly of the family of Hot Dogs. I asked the (very busy) waitress what it is, and she replied "A New York System Wiener" but there was a hint of a question mark at the end of the answer that told me this particular wiener is always known as an NYS Wiener, and the details are immaterial.

I ordered it. She said "Loaded" and there was the hint of no question mark at the end of it, so I assumed that's how it's served in those parts and went with the flow. You can see the results above. 

After getting home I did some research on this wiener business.

When we celebrated Annette's Venetian Birthday Feast, there was one dish that I really wanted to make, but could not get a key ingredient. Bisati sull'Ara, or Eels on the Altar, was a traditional dinner for the glassblowers of Murano. They would take eels from the harbor, chop them and bake them in the glass furnaces on and under bay leaves, seasoned only with salt. But I could not get the eels.

Well, Christmas brings many wonderful things, and it brings eels, too, to fish markets in areas with large Italian populations (and maybe Portuguese too?). So our Saturday meanderings brought us to New Bedford, one of the two great fishing ports of Massachusetts (the other being Gloucester).

After some careful exploration of the local antiques coops, I had a hunch to try Kyler's Catch Seafood, not far from Exit 15, in hopes of finding plump eels to cook "on the altar". 

They had the eels, and smoked ones, too, but I passed on those. As soon as I had a bag with two plump eels, I called Annette. We hastily arranged a dinner featuring the eels.

The recipe is about the easiest recipe since the hard-boiled egg. I had the bay leaves and salt, and there's nothing else but a sprinkle of water.

After an arduous night of eating, we took our traditional Christmas Day drive. This year found us trekking southwest along the Massachusetts South Coast, through Newport and Jamestown RI and all the way down to Point Judith, before turning northward to Milford, Massachusetts for desserts with family. (They had a proper Christmas Day Feast as well, but we were just not up to continued dining on that scale).

By the time we arrived in Milford the sweets were out and awaiting us. There was a Christmas Pudding, and the Buche de Noel, a cheesecake and some canollis made by one niece and cupcakes by another, and plenty of strong coffee.

Everything was excellent, but I have to give Best of Show to the Buche for its iconic status as a Christmas treat in our family. My mother taught us to make the Buche when I was very young and some of my siblings were not yet born. It has been a Christmas tradtion in our clan for nearly half a century. Wherever the Buche goes, it is a crowd-pleaser and it looks great as well. The best thing about it is that it is not so hard to make (I was making it with my mother when I was 7 years old - it's a great way to get your kids into the kitchen for the holidays). The Buche de Noel recipe on this site is my mother's recipe with a few minor tweaks that crept in over the years. This recipe is as published in The Festive Season cookbook from Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, MA.

December day trips bring their own challenges,. The worst one, in my opinion, is that the days are so short it really reduces our range. Fortunately for day-trippers from the Boston area, one of the nicest drives on the Maine Coast is just a half-hour north of Portland. For the foodies among us, there is even a destination wine shop to visit!

Portland, ME, is on Casco Bay. The southern end of Casco Bay is defined by Cape Elizabeth and its famous Portland Head Light. The northern end of Casco Bay is contained by two long points of land: Harpswell Neck and Orr's and Bailey's Islands.

The latter make a particularly fine scenic winter drive, less than an hour from Portland, half an hour from Freeport, and 15 minutes from Brunswick. The roads are hilly and bendy, so you get constantly-changing new views of bayside scenery, lobster boats, tidy rural homes, scenic village centers, and all the things that make the Maine Coast so fun to explore.

Of special interest to the Foodie Pilgrim is the Black Sheep Wine Shop, a truly excellent shop with knowledgeable owners who really "get it" when you describe what you want. They have 650 good wines in stock, including some you rarely see elsewhere, plus an astonishing array of microbrews, some cheeses, and enough crackers and the like to make it possible to build an event around a few star wines that you find there.

On Christmas Eve, we hitched up the reindeer and set out for an evening of feasting and family. Naturally we travelled through three states to do it...

We had a Feast of Seven Fishes at one brother's place in Maine, and then another in Massachusetts. You might think that makes 14 fishes, a feast in anyone's book, but mine is a cautious family when it comes to tradition; for fear of having only six fishes if a recipe fails, we might have a backup fish, or two, or three. I can only assume it was an obsession with compliance with tradition that led to the presence of a bowl of Goldfish crackers and a bowl of Swedish Fish at one of the two homes! 

Between the two events, we had:

The Feast of Seven Fishes is a southern Italian tradition that is catching on again among the descendants of the Italian-American immigrant community. The basic idea is simple: while awaiting the birth of Jesus, we abstain from meat and dairy foods. Naturally for Italians this is an invitation to get creative with fish, so traditionally we prepare a feast featuring seven different seafood dishes and as many vegetarian dishes as you like.

It is also important to note that southern Italy has historically been very poor. It certainly was during the great waves of immigration from there in the early Twentieth Century. Many of the dishes passed down through family tradition reflect this: smelts, sardines, octopus, eel, baccala, and anchovies in pasta all are common foods in the feasts that strive for authenticity.

There's really no point in trying to get too authentic about the seven fishes, since many of the seafoods and other ingredients are not available in New England. A certain amount of substitution is unavoidable, which brings up the idea of following the tradition in spirit more than in substance: if my great-grandfather in Campania were to celebrate Christmas Eve in foodie style, how would he do it? If he immigrated to Plymouth, how then?

Every year my employer allows us an afternoon for a Yankee Swap and some goodies. The affair has grown with the company over the years, from an original potluck by yours truly serving 25 employees to a small team of dedicated elves serving the 94 employees in the Lexington office of an international corporation.

A small amount is catered in from the outfit that provides food for our lunchtime meetings; this is because we have no way of preparing hot food in quantity. But you might be surprised at what we set out with just a few creative people who want to show a good time to their colleagues.

Annette has fond memories of Venice, so we turned to that fair city for the third in our Exploring Italy series of celebratory birthday feasts. Most of the dishes came from Anna Del Conte's The Classic Food of Northern Italy.

We had:

• A Cato Corner Hooligan cheese (one of Annette's favorites) and some Reggiano Parmesan with a bottle of Allegrini Palazzo delle Torre 2009
• Risi e Bisi: a hearty traditional soup of rice and baby peas with crushed fennel seed
• A bottle of Secco-Bertani Valpolicella 2008
• Baccala Mantecato on Broiled Polenta: another Venetian classic that was far more delicate than we expected from the salt cod.
• A bottle of an excellent, chocolatey San Giuseppe Amarone della Valpolicella 2003.
• Stewed Savoy Cabbage: cored and quartered Savoy cabbage cooked on a soffrito of panceta, onion, and parsley and then braised in white wine - the surprise hit of the evening!
• Stuffed Sole (spinach, golden raisins, pignoli)  in a Venetian Saffron Sauce (a reduction of the fish poaching liquid with saffron and a bit of sugar).
• For dessert we had something non-Italian: a cranberry mincemeat pie made by a friend and brought down by Annette.

My stepdaughter Melissa lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Jeremy. Melissa misses the New England Christmas, especially the Christmas stockings that we fill every year (and ship to LA when Melissa and Jeremy cannot get back east).

I always like finding funny and interesting and just plain bizarre goodies at all sorts of markets, including ethnic ones. Some of these things naturally end up credited to Santa Claus. After all, he fills stockings from all around the world, so why limit his treats to what comes from Hershey, PA?

In a recent blog post, Melissa mentioned that one of her favorite things about Christmas is "stocking stuffed to the brim with exotic candies from all over the world". I am glad she likes it! Here's some of what we scored on yesterday's expedition, and similar expeditions:

• Baza Market, in Newton Upper Falls, MA, (take Highland Ave east from Rte 128) source of that awesome dragon above, plus a great assortment of candies in colorful wrappers printed in Russian. I have no idea if Melissa is getting chocolate-covered herring, but it sure looks nice!
• Maria's Pastry in Boston's North End - the best marzipan fruits, great homemade panforte.
• Bahnan's Market and Ed Hyder's, both in Worcester.

Wegmans,

9102 Shops Way,
Northborough, MA 01532

Ever since Wegmans opened in Northborough, Massachusetts we’d planned to go there.  The chain is famous for the quality and variety of its foods, and once, traveling through Pennsylvania, we passed a Wegmans supermarket, and were tempted by its fabled wonder, but our itinerary dragged us away. 

Now we have a Wegmans nearer home, and it was an opportunity to be seized. Heading west on Route 9, we took an exit onto Route 20 toward Northborough, and made the next right onto Shops Way.  There it was.

I’ve always loved markets.  I’ve wandered plazas in Mexico where women spread homegrown chilies on blankets.

Our old friend Owen lives in Germany now, so we don't see him very often. He was visiting the US this week on family business with his daughter Sarah and a lady friend, Brigitte. Our opportunity to see them was a Sunday brunch. Because Brigitte doesn't get fresh seafood very often and seldom sees New England fare, I set up a little highlights of New England brunch: 

• We started with scones and Rhode Island johnnycakes, with New Hampshire maple syrup, wild Maine blueberry preserves, and local cranberry preserves, plus some traditional lemon curd and Double devon clotted cream from Mrs Bridge's Pantry in Woodstock, Connecticut. 
• On another plate we had some Grafton Village Special Reserve Cheddar, from Vermont.
• Then we had scrambled eggs with chives and sage from the garden (still good thanks to this bizarrely warm December!) and my celebrated Lobster Salad with fresh-from-the-harbor lobsters from Wood's Seafoods, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
• We finished up with a Christmas Pudding and Hard Sauce to make the brunch extra-festive.

So we represented all six New England states in one brunch!

Every year as Christmas approaches, I host a sort of party at work. This has grown from the first one when I just made some goodies to share with my colleagues, to a much larger event sanctioned by the company for which I get a budget for goodies for the 80 people or so in our Lexington headquarters.

I need a lot of goodies for that many people, and I don't like to get them at the supermarket. So every December we make a special acquisition expedition to get the goods. This trip took us from Plymouth to Worcester, then up Route 13 to Amherst, NH and eventually as far as Hanover, NH and Norwich, VT.

Naturally such an arduous journey requires appropriate foodie sustenance; we were happy to find what we needed at the Black Forest Cafe on Route 101 in Amherst.

Our adventure this Saturday brought us antiquing along Route 1 in southern Maine. We had a specific goal in mind: a 1950s style juice pitcher just like one I had broken the night of Lorna's Tuscan Birthday Feast. (Note to self: If you put a pitcher of water in the freezer to chill, set the oven timer so you don't forget it!)

We had been in this area many times, but we typically stayed along the scenic roads out along the shore, ME 102, ME 9, and other byways. This time our mission kept us to Route 1, where so many antiques shops are, and where we finally got to the iconic Flo's Hot Dogs.

It's not really hard to get to Flo's. The problem for us is that we usually are beyond during the brief 11am to 3pm open time, or we are looking for breakfast, not a hot dog, or we just had breakfast. But in this case the timing was right.

I like Hot Dogs, especially steamed ones, so I was glad to get back to Flo's. Flo's Hot Dogs is a tiny yellow shack on the east side of Rte 1 in York, not far inland from Nubble Light and York Beach. Hot dogs have been sold here since 1959 and it looks it. The inside has a lunch counter with maybe a dozen stools, but on a good day there might be 20 people standing in a queue behind the stools waiting for hot dogs.  Saturday was a good day, cool but sunny, so the place was packed at about 1pm when we arrived, 20 strangers amiably chatting and waiting for dogs.

There is a protocol to ordering dogs, and it is clearly posted above the counter.

We live in Plymouth, Massachusetts, just a few blocks from Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower II replica ship. It is a tourist town, and many restaurants suffer from what we call "the Tourist Effect", which is the tendency to abandon repeat customers in favor of slick advertising and an endless stream of tourists who do not know where the good food is. 

When we heard that a new beer-themed restaurant was going to open downtown, we thought sarcastically "Great! Just what Plymouth needs is another big sports bar with lousy food!" But being fearless explorers, your dauntless Foodie Pilgrims donned our pith helmets and went to the New World Tavern.

 It was a revelation! Fabulous! Incredible! And hopefully not doomed to drown in a swamp of mediocrity, outcompeted by cheap beer and worse food. The food was exciting and new and delicately prepared, and the beer was varied and fresh. The help was knowedgeable and friendly.

I won't go into any more detail here, except to say that Richmond and I have decided to make a careful scientific survey of the New World Tavern. There is much to explore there, and it seems we have discovered an exciting new world of foodie-beer goodness right on our doorsteps! Stay tuned for the Discovery Journal of your intrepid pilgrims.  

When my baby brother got married in October, Lorna and I gave the newlyweds a pair of nice Waterford Irish Coffee cups along with my Irish Coffee recipe.

We finally got to show them the proper use of such fine vessels with the help of fresh-ground coffee, Knappogue Castle Irish Whiskey, and fresh thickened cream. It was a cool night in coastal Maine, and the Irish Coffee took the chill off while we looked at photos of their honeymoon in Italy.

Irish Coffee is a delight on a winter evening, when prepared properly with quality ingredients. Don't let a disappointing experience with weak coffee and Redi-Whip ruin this convivial winter potion for you - try my Irish Coffee recipe when you can, and post your thoughts below.