Hello from a bright, crisp day in Brooklyn! Today, I’m back with another menu, designed to celebrate October in all her glory.
Autumn grapes, cheese, & bread
This pre-dinner nosh could either be totally passable or exceedingly delicious, and it all depends on how much effort you’re willing to put into collecting the ingredients. If you’re aiming for exceedingly delicious, here’s what I recommend:
Grapes: Get the grapes from the farmers’ market, if you’re lucky enough to live near one. I never liked grapes very much until I tried them in the fall in New York, when they’re at their absolute sweetest. For New York City farmers’ market shoppers, this page on GrowNYC’s website is a helpful resource, with a graph showing which produce is available each month.
Cheese: Listen to my older brother, Trevor, who worked as a cheesemonger at Formaggio in Cambridge, and seek out the following cheeses: a soft goat cheese and a semi-hard sheep cheese. For the goat, he recommends anything from Sage Farm Goat Dairy in Stowe, Vermont, and for the sheep, he recommends the Verano from Vermont Shepherd in Westminster, Vermont, or something from the French Pyrenees. I so rarely splurge on cheese, so it feels extra special when I do. I visited the New York branch of Formaggio in the Essex Market and ended up with a wedge of the Verano and a delicious goat cheese from Quebec called Grey Owl.
Bread: Buy a baguette. (I always want thin slices of baguette with my cheese.) Brooklynites: La Bicyclette Bakery sells an excellent baguette for $2 — a New York City miracle! Thanks, Devra, for the tip.
Teo’s Tour de France
At long last: Teo’s cocktail corner! I’m admittedly not much of a cocktail person, but Teo is, and we have quite the bar cart as a result. This drink is a variation on a Tour de France, and it’s lovely: orangey, earthy, and smooth.
Ingredients:
1 oz Bonal Gentiane-Quina
1½ oz semi-sweet vermouth (dry vermouth is more traditional)
¼ oz Grand Marnier
2 dashes orange bitters
Instructions:
Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker until cold. Strain into a lowball glass with large ice cubes.
Pan-seared pork chops with rosemary and lemon zest, polenta, and roasted broccolini
For these pork chops, we riffed on a recipe from Jeremy Lee’s gorgeous book, Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many. Thick, juicy pork chops are best here so you can get a good sear without overcooking them. Start by seasoning the pork chops with salt and pepper, then heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat with a little neutral oil. Add the pork chops and let cook, undisturbed, until deep brown in color (about 8-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chops). Meanwhile, add lemon zest, picked rosemary, fennel seeds, and peeled garlic to a spice grinder and whiz until combined. (You can also do this with a mortar and pestle if you want a little workout.) Flip the pork chops and cook until the rest of the way done, which should only be a few minutes at this point. Remove from the heat, and spoon the mixture from the spice grinder onto the pork chops. The residual heat will mellow the garlic just the right amount. Lee recommends a splash of red wine vinegar on the pork chops at the end, too, which I thought was a nice touch.
To go with the pork, I like polenta — a humble dish, and one that I’d like to write about in more depth at some point. For now, let me just say that with a little time, enough salt, and a healthy pat of butter, polenta can be impossibly delicious. Plus, it’s a brilliant base for almost anything, including pork chops. Follow the package instructions, then keep seasoning and tasting until it’s right. As for the broccolini, toss it with olive oil, salt, black pepper, and thinly sliced lemon, then roast it at 400 F or so. It only takes 15-20 minutes until the stalks are tender and the ends crispy and charred.
Roasted pears with cream and gingersnaps
An elegant, easy dessert, inspired by this Deb Perelman recipe. Peel, core, and quarter your pears, then add them to a baking dish. Squeeze with lemon juice, sprinkle generously with granulated sugar, and add a little spoonful of vanilla bean paste. Toss to coat. Pour in a couple tablespoons of water, dab the pears with butter, and transfer to an oven at 350 F. Bake for about an hour, tossing midway, until the pears are soft and caramelized and your kitchen smells like heaven. Serve with cold cream (whipped or not) and gingersnaps.
Previous menus, in case you missed them! xx
Thank you for reading!
Warmly,
Phoebe