They’re really more of an update than a total departure, but they’re still going to turn up the flavor on your favorite dishes.
By Kendra Lee Thatcher
Rules provide us with fundamental foundations. But that doesn’t mean they’re untouchable. Everything’s worth a second look. It’s part of evolution. I especially love heading into my kitchen and challenging the establishment. It’s less about how I can do it better and more about how I can do it differently, because cooking is a study in nuance. The same recipe altered by a degree or two will yield completely different flavors.
Here in the heart of braising and stew season, I got to thinking about cooking with wine. Winemaking is progressing by great leaps and bounds. Yet, we’re still cooking with wine in a lot of the same ways that Julia Child taught us (use the cheap stuff, apply liberally). I decided to experiment with coq au vin, and what I found is that some small changes yield big flavor.
What follows are a couple of the more critical lessons I learned that afternoon. I’ve since applied them to scampi, risotto, even baking, all with crowd-pleasing results.
Cook like you drink
We’re finally catching up to the fact that freshness matters. Veggies from the farmers market taste better than veggies plucked from the produce aisle. So why, then, would you dump a $7-bottle of Yellow Tail into the pot? The point of the wine is to coax even more complexity from those delicate flavors. But a cheap wine is only going to drown them.
A better-quality wine usually means less sugar and artificial tampering, which translates to more pronounced flavors and textures. And all of that will come through in the cooking. Basically, stop thinking in terms of wine that you drink and wine that you cook with. You’ve honed your standards with the former. It’s time now to do it with the latter.
And drink what you cook with
In that vein, serve the rest of that bottle with dinner. And have more of it waiting in the wings. The pairing will add a whole new dimension to the wine. Waves of cassis and tobacco were suddenly coming through the burgundy I used in the coq au vin. As prominent and pleasant as they were, they spilled down my throat unnoticed before.
Be bold, not reckless
Once you get a couple of successful meals beneath you, resist the urge to take bigger risks. The idea here is to update a few rules, not rewrite them entirely. Think changes by degrees, not by miles. I swapped the traditional Chianti in my grandmother’s Sunday gravy with Lambrusco. I made scallops and scampi with Prosecco. And I marinated pork in sake. Treat the wine as you would any other ingredient in the dish. Consider its flavor profile and the dish’s before cooking anything. If they seem like they’d marry well, go for it. If it requires too much blind faith, move on.
Respect the one hard and fast rule
Unless you’re making a crockpot meal where everything goes in together, take the time to layer your flavors. When you let the wine mingle with the other ingredients before you start introducing stocks and the like, you’re giving the alcohol a chance to cook off. And that’s a good thing because the wine’s flavor profile will then meld with the dish. Rush it, and no matter how good the wine, all you’re really going to get is the alcohol.
There’s nothing new here, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s a technique that too many of us gloss over. I wouldn’t want you to try this on your own, only to rush the wine and think that’s nothing’s changed.
Don’t worry. Your drive’s probably even shorter than it was. And with that convenience comes even more incentive to grab your apron and put those new knife skills to the test.
By Kendra Lee Thatcher
Ian Knauer and Shelley Wiseman, our trusted guides in this bountiful but sometimes-confounding new landscape.
While you were having a good ol’ time last month, what with all the eggnoggin’ and mistletoin’, one of our most creative and entertaining kitchens picked up and moved about 15 minutes downriver. News of The Farm Cooking School’s relocation to Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville, New Jersey, came as a bit of a surprise. Its chef/owners, Ian Knauer and Shelley Wiseman, appeared to be planting roots at Tullamore Farms, with talk of additional Airbnb rentals there and programming that catered to those overnight guests.
Gravity Hill, though, offers what Tullamore could not: a more central location. Lambertville (and New Hope) sits about 10 minutes to the north and I95, about 10 minutes to the south. There’s also a larger movement unfolding there, in which The Farm Cooking School will be playing a prominent role. Whereas, at Tullamore, Knauer and Wiseman were the farm’s one and only draw, for the most part. Coinciding with the move, Roots to River Organic Farm is taking over Gravity Hill’s fields and its onsite weekend market, where Knauer and Wiseman will be selling prepared foods. (Roots to River owner Malaika Spencer is a former Gravity Hill apprentice.) The impetus for all of this? A new facility called The Barn at Gravity Hill, which’ll be used for workshops and retreats with the aim of turning the farm into a sort of locally-grown hub.
Knauer started The Farm Cooking School about four years ago. From its inception, he and Wiseman nurtured a loyal following of aspiring cooks and enthusiastic eaters through a user-friendly—actually, friendly, period—approach to locally sourced cooking that preaches fundamental techniques and constant enjoyment. Their quaint teaching kitchen at Tullamore became known, through both an extensive roster of classes and regular dinners, as the place to savor elevated food of almost every kind in decidedly unpretentious ways.
Most of us have entered this brave new world through a farmers market only to then discover we’re pretty much on our own to piece the rest of it together. Sure, there’s no shortage of blogs, cookbooks and shows, but little of it is personalized to our experience, living here in this moment, and none of it is interactive. Which makes Knauer and Wiseman practically necessary, whether you’re simply curious (craft an authentic French brunch) or all-in (butcher a side of venison and make terrine with it). And now, with some breathing room, you can expect the subjects and dinners to only become more adventurous—Northern Central European cooking, real-time recipe testing. After all, this is unchartered territory.
Photos courtesy The Farm Cooking School / Guy Ambrosino
Kristin Donnelly is a mom, an author, a photographer, a chef and an entrepreneur. And with her first cookbook just out, a household name-in-the-making.
By Kendra Lee Thatcher · Photography by Josh DeHonney
If you don’t already know Kristin Donnelly, you will shortly. She’s seemingly everywhere at once, the way a small flame suddenly catches the kindling.
A regular contributor to the likes of Food & Wine, epicurious, EveryDay with Rachael Ray, Women’s Health and Prevention magazines, Donnelly dropped her first cookbook this summer, Modern Potluck: Beautiful Food to Share (Clarkson Potter), and already has another one in development. She also writes an online journal, Eat Better Drink Better, that’s gripping in its intimacy. An excerpt from the day after the election:
It’s 3 pm on a Wednesday. I’ve finally showered. I lit a candle and I burned sage. I walked to the mailbox and to the new bakery in town and cried with a new friend and ate the quiche she made. I’ve also received tone-deaf PR emails with titles like “Politics suck. This ladle doesn’t.” and resisted the urge to respond with vitriol.
When she’s not writing, or shooting or developing a recipe, Donnelly’s tending to her organic lip balm line, Stewart & Claire, which she developed with her husband, Philip, and to her daughter, also developed with Philip. It all seems too much to be true, so we visited her at home in New Hope and asked her to walk us through a day in her life.
7 a.m. | She’s up. And making coffee straightaway. One Up One Down Coffee brewed in a Chemex Pour-over. “I love the ritual of it,” Donnelly says. “I also love the fact that it’s delivered every other week, so it’s one less thing I have to think about adding to the grocery list.”
7:20 a.m. | As her husband and daughter, Elsa, begin to stir, she makes Elsa’s lunch. “I like to make a big pot of lentils on Sunday to use for lunches during the week. But that doesn’t always happen.” This is one of those instances, so Elsa’s ending up with her favorite lunch: a cream cheese and jam sandwich, a side of broccoli and a couple of apples they picked over the weekend.
7:50 a.m. | Breakfast varies from day to day, but Donnelly’s recent go-tos are muesli with kefir or whole grain toast slathered with jam.
8:25 a.m. | With Elsa off to school, Donnelly dresses.
8:55 a.m. | “I’m really very systematized,” she says, reaching for a leather-bound notebook that’s filled with pages of neatly written notes. “At the beginning of each month, I write a list of goals. Then on Sundays, I write my weekly to-dos. And at the start of each day, I put together my tasks and schedule.”
The window by her desk is filled with a grid of yellow and green Post-its. More lists? “Those? No. No, that’s my daughter’s ‘artwork,’ leftover from a sick day,” she says, laughing.
9:15 a.m. | “I like to start my day with the most brain-taxing tasks first because I simply have the most energy in the morning.” They range from packing Stewart & Claire orders to pitching new accounts to writing.
10:55 a.m. | Herbal tea break.
11 a.m. | “I need mental time to transition from one task to the other,” Donnelly says. Right now, that means scanning her inbox and updating social media.
11:20 a.m. | Writing. Her approach is simple, but strict: Don’t wait for the deadline. And don’t stare at a blinking cursor. She sets aside an hour each day to write. No more, no less.
12:25 p.m. | “On my best days, I have lunch planned out—a hearty salad with lentils,” she says. “I love an energizing lunch.” Today, however, leftovers will suffice.
1 p.m. | Donnelly’s afternoons are reserved for testing recipes, photo shoots, producing podcasts and exercising. What that often means is that work and dinner are knocked out in one act.
3:35 p.m. | Coffee break. Donnelly walks over to Factory Girl Bake Shop to meet a friend over an ancient grain scone.
4:15 p.m. | “I sometimes choose between working out and straightening up,” she says. “Working out has been winning.” Yoga is her go-to exercise, but, when the weather was kinder, she also liked to ride the towpath.
5:30 p.m. | Donnelly picks up Elsa from school and heads home to make (or polish off) dinner. Inevitably, a dance party breaks out. Anything by Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan’s kids station are their tracks of choice. All the while, Elsa’s helping to stir, peel and set the table.
6:30 p.m. | “We sit down to dinner as a family every night,” Donnelly says, glancing into the dining room. Here, being present is sacred.
8:30 p.m. | The dishes are done and Elsa’s tucked in, which leaves a small, fleeting window. “I’ll either do something luxurious, like read my favorite food magazines or cookbooks, or something real,” Donnelly says, “like watch ‘Gilmore Girls’ and fold laundry.”
There comes a time in our adult lives when we realize that it’s time to let go of the secondhand stuff, the piecemeal collections and the flat-out old and begin forming our own identities. Mine arrived this summer as my seven-year-old nephew gulped milk from an Oktoberfest pint glass. We promptly nicknamed him Sluggo, but the site unsettled me, nonetheless.
We held on to souvenirs from college, like that glass (and many others of its kind), because they’re still totally functional, and we don’t like waste. Clearly, though, more appropriate drinkware was in order. So I made a pact with myself: My purchases would be purposeful, sustainable and as local (sourced and made) as possible.
I found Owen Moon, a budding artisan, and his 10-ounce Ceramic Dart Cup Set ($60) at the Wrightstown Farmers Market. Yep, those Dart cups, the kind we used to drink from, maybe gnaw around the lip a little and then toss into the garbage. Owen casts the Styrofoam cups in his studio at Alfred University (he’s still in school) and glazes them in faint, glossy shades of indigo, cranberry and cream. The Dart logo on the bottom of the cup’s still very much intact. It was the nostalgia that pulled me, but the ingenuity sealed the deal.
The pint glasses are stowed away, safely out of reach of lil’ Sluggo, awaiting my husband’s future cave. We’re serious adults now; we drink from Dart cups. —Kendra Lee Thatcher
The Doylestown Food Market’s annual dinner pays homage to the growers at the heart of its mission.
By Kendra Lee Thatcher
To me, the only thing sexier than a classy crowd of farm-loving, loca-gastro-vores is a classy crowd of farm-loving, loca-gastro-vores dripping in sweat.
Saturday’s relentless heat index of 106 was no deterrent for the Doylestown Food Market’s supporters, who gathered around communal tables under tents at the Bucks County Audubon Society’s Honey Hollow preserve in Solebury for the market’s annual farm-to-table dinner, proceeds from which help support the cooperative grocery.
Responsible for the night’s menu were twins Keith and Kevin Blalock. Keith is the chef at PA Soup and Seafood and Penn Taproom, both in Doylestown. Kevin is the chef at Lookaway Golf Club in Buckingham.
The star of the cocktail hour was a decided underdog, given the stylish offerings. The Dublin-based Sole Kombucha’s watermelon lime kombucha mixed with Rushland Ridge Vineyard’s Trimonette was a refreshing respite from the stifling night.
Mushroom risotto croquettes and horseradish-crème filet mignon toast points were passed around. I stood at an out-of-the-way high top and took it all in—honey-colored beams crisscrossing in an architectural web above a fluid, mingling group.
Dusk cast its evening twilight over us and, mercifully, reduced the humidity to a comfortable level. Twinkly lights and filament bulbs, strung above our tables, gave the setting a quintessential summer glow. Almost right from the start, the conversation around my table flowed effortlessly, rife with gardening advice, recipe swapping and updates on a host of other grassroots movements.
The dinner was studded with the fruits of nearby farms. An heirloom tomato salad with Blue Moon Acres microgreens. A vegan ratatouille with Roots to River squash.
And then there was the porchetta, made from a heritage breed hog raised in Lancaster. The chef placed a healthy serving atop my plate, but I didn’t budge. He looked at me. I looked at him. Our eyes dropped down to the carving board together and I asked, “Would it be weird if I requested a helping of the skin?” A wide smile spread across his face. “Are you kidding? Do you hear that crackling,” he said, as he crushed and snapped the skin in one hand. He piled several large pieces onto my plate, and finally I moved on.
The pork was not disappointing, succulent and seasoned deftly with garlic, rosemary, sage and thyme. But my table, the tent, the world went mute when I bit into the skin—crispy, caramelized, savory, fatty perfection.
The menu was not especially innovative. But, then, we weren’t soaking through our clothes in anticipation of witnessing any culinary feats. This audience and the chefs shared a fondness for the ingredients, harvested a day or two earlier at the peak of their ripeness. We were there to taste purity, which may actually be a kind of culinary feat.
The crowds, the traffic, the tracksuits. Before you talk yourself out of one last summer vacation, follow us on a tour of a far savvier long weekend. By Scott Edwards
Some would say that going to Atlantic City and avoiding the casinos is sacrilege. But The Chelsea, perched right on the periphery, was the ideal home base for our decidedly un-Shore-like Shore weekend.
The summer was passing us by, we realized. Sure, there’d been a wedding or a barbeque almost every weekend since May, but we hadn’t so much as split a bottle of tempranillo on the deck, let alone managed a vacation. We forged a pact, then and there, to free up a couple of days—just long enough for a change of location.
The Jersey Shore was the obvious destination. We both spent parts of our summers there growing up, my wife in and around Long Beach Island and me in Ocean City. More importantly, the drive would not undo us and the forecast was sunny. The problem was, we’d hardly be the only ones feeling that urgency. And, I’d grown weary of the Shore. It had come to mean long waits for food that I always remembered tasting better, relentless traffic and Jersey caricatures crowding the ever-diminishing beaches.
So, we made it our mission to hunt down an altogether different Shore experience, and, in the process, slip past the mobs huddled around the traditional joints. Heading to AC, then, would seem counterintuitive, I know. But The Chelsea became the cornerstone of our blueprint. It sits discreetly on the south end of the boardwalk, just beyond the last (open) casino. You won’t avoid the Rascal traffic, but you will claim a larger swath of the sand for yourself. The still-sprawling beach is an afterthought here. As proof, admission is free.
We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure. Top: The rooftop pool lounge at The Chelsea.
Everything else was icing, and we were thick with icing. Between the Miami-esque interior design and the Biggie Smalls that was humming in the lobby when we arrived, The Chelsea exudes a cool-kid vibe, but the embracing kind you find in Zac Efron movies, not the aloof, elitist variety from an actual high school. We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure.
The Chelsea offers beach service—a pair of lounge chairs and an umbrella that’s installed for you—which sounds like a small perk, but not having to lug our own sand-caked gear immediately felt like a deep indulgence. We took advantage as soon as we could, naturally, whiling our first few hours at the edge of the lapping tide without so much as a handful of words uttered between us—or around us.
That night, we drove away from the casinos and pulled into the parking lot of a wine and spirits shop about a mile from the hotel. We entered through a barely-marked entrance on the side of the building, walked past a long bar and sat at the end of a row of 10 two-person tables. Most nights, every seat is filled, we were told, but we were two of a few.
The Iron Room at the Atlantic City Bottle Company is a tasting room of sorts. Mostly small plates are on offer, and they change practically daily. Bar fare, it is not. First off, you’re in a space within reach of a smartly curated liquor store, so trust that you’re going to drink well. We ordered from the bar, but the couple a table over—the only other diners there—told us about a small group buying its wine in the shop and sharing it among themselves the last time they were there.
The dishes came fast once we ordered: a house-made pappardelle ($9) tossed with brown butter, toasted pepitas and parmesan; tuna crudo ($14) paired with house-pickled jalapenos, golden beets and cabbage slaw; za’atar-crusted sturgeon ($17) placed atop a cold soba noodle salad seasoned with herbs, ponzu and soy. Most of it was local, and yet little of it was familiar.
Every plate was clean in five or six bites, but there were two that we lingered over, or tried to, at least: a Korean barbeque hangar steak ($15) with sweet and sour Brussels sprouts and morsels of bacon and pan-seared sockeye salmon ($20) smothered in tzatziki and served on a small pile of succotash made of snap peas and roasted corn so sweet it tasted like it was infused with sugar water.
Forget the soft-serve, we pushed ourselves over the edge with a wedge of flourless chocolate cake that sat in a pool of salted caramel.
Day 2 | Teplitzky’s, The Chelsea’s diner-style restaurant, is old-school Miami in HD. We ate breakfast in an open-air room within view of one of the hotel’s two pools. It was decorated in the fashion of what I imagine the solarium in the shared house on “The Golden Girls” looked like. I say this not as a criticism, because it’s the polar antithesis of every dimly-lit, all-you-can-eat casino buffet I’ve regretfully found myself in. And for that hour over breakfast, I managed to convince myself that we were a lot further from home than a couple of hours.
Virtually every table around us—young families and small groups of twentysomething hipsters—was divvying up the signature dish, The Big Teplitzky: two pancakes, French toast, three eggs, toast or a bagel, hash browns, bacon, pork roll, turkey sausage and a pot of coffee. There’s a running challenge: Double The Big Teplitzky—that’s four pounds of food, allegedly—consume it by yourself in under a half-hour, and it’s yours free. No one tried, that we saw, but lots asked about it.
After a sun-drenched few hours on a sparsely-populated beach, we hit the road and headed south on the parkway for Avalon. We had a dinner reservation at The Diving Horse, a 70-seat BYOB on buzzing Dune Drive that’s only open between Memorial and Labor days. It’s owned by Dan Clark and Ed Hackett, who are also responsible for Pub & Kitchen and Fitler Dining Room, both in Philly.
The décor is spare, way more Pottery Barn farmhouse than rental beach house—dark wood floors and matching chairs, a row of old church pews line the wall on one side of a bank of tables, small lanterns lit with Edison bulbs dot the walls every few feet.
We got there at 6:30 p.m., and by the time we were done ordering, the dining room had filled in around us. As soon as the appetizers arrived, it was obvious we were about to be clued in to what everyone else already knew.
The heirloom tomato salad ($14) with ricotta and mint sourdough croutons ruined tomatoes for me for the rest of the summer, they were that lush. My wife made subtle cooing noises with every spoonful of her Cape Cod mussels and Chesapeake clams ($13), which were served bisque-style in a light broth loaded with roasted corn, shishito peppers and Japanese herbs.
Local connections were everywhere. The ricotta was from Lambertville’s Fulper Farms. There was a Blue Moon Acres (Buckingham and Hopewell, NJ) arugula salad. And the Hudson Canyon swordfish featured mushrooms from Shibumi Farm, in Princeton.
An unmistakably mesquite-flavored Cape May sea bream ($31) followed. (We felt stupid for asking, but every table around us eventually did, too. It’s a meaty white fish, FYI.) I went for the New Jersey fluke ($34) dressed in a cucumber yogurt sauce, which came in a light sweet pepper and zucchini stew. We split plates of Jersey corn ($9) tossed with chili, lemon and olive oil—very simple, very delicious—and beautifully crisp, fried Brussels sprouts seasoned with ginger and lime.
We ate as slowly as we could, hoping it would prolong each course forever. Instead, it felt like our stay lasted about 15 minutes. We left reluctantly, gushed about the dinner the whole drive back to The Chelsea, got up the next morning and picked right back up.
Day 3 | Our last few hours, so we crammed them full: a jog into Ventnor and back along pristine, open boardwalk, a light breakfast at Teplitzky’s (relatively speaking) and a too-brief stint at the rooftop pool lounge. We had it to ourselves, which felt like a fitting conclusion to our off-the-beaten path weekend.
While my wife packed, I roamed Yelp, looking for one last score. It came in the form of an outdated but tidy hole that sits in the shadows of the casinos along Atlantic Avenue. But we weren’t coming to Pho Sydney to be seen or even, really, to be comfortable. We were there for lunch.
Bowls with the diameter of a basketball were hurried over to our corner booth, one filled with pork pho, the other with grilled chicken pho. Both were packed with tender rice noodles, crisp carrot sticks, wilted strips of lemongrass and a handful of crushed peanuts. We ate, we sighed with intoxication. Total bill: 21 bucks.
Photos courtesy The Chelsea / Dan Pearse Photographers, Inc.
[divider]Stay[/divider]
The Chelsea
111 South Chelsea Avenue, Atlantic City
thechelsea-ac.com; @TheChelsea_AC
Rooms from $139 Perks
Roof-top cabana club
10,000-square foot spa
Beach service ($15 a day)
Valet garage parking
Eat The Iron Room at the Atlantic City Bottle Company
648 N. Albany Ave., Atlantic City
acbottlecompany.com/food; @ACBottleCompany
Book the chef’s table and the tasting menu. At 65 bucks, it’s well worth it. Might as well splurge on the drink pairing, too. After all, how often are you going to have a wine and spirits shop at your disposal?
The Diving Horse
2109 Dune Drive, Avalon, NJ
thedivinghorseavalon.com; @TheDivingHorse
With only a couple weekends left in the season, your best shot at a prime-time reservation is on a weeknight. And, with a liquor store across the street, there are no excuses for showing up empty-handed. —SE
[divider]Coming Up for Air[/divider]
The Jersey Shore has a way of forcing us back into old, familiar patterns. But what if you dared to be different? By Kendra Lee Thatcher
I wake up exactly eight minutes before my alarm goes off. It’s 5:52 a.m. I give in, toss the indulgent Frette sheets aside and spring out of bed. In an hour, I’ll be surfing!
My bikini’s still damp, but I throw it on anyway and then make a cup of oolong tea. Kristin, my sister, is still asleep, oblivious.
I open the doors to the balcony and the breeze from the bay promptly pushes into our room. The air is sweet and recognizable, comforting. It fills my lungs. I sip and stare out across the water. Aside from the ambient call of the gulls and the subtle lapping of the water, there’s complete silence. Peace, really.
Below is the Water Star Grille, where, last night, Kristin and I drank herbaceous martinis. Feeling no rush, nor agenda, we reminisced, philosophized and savored the sunset.
Ten minutes and counting. I’m pacing, so I decide to just go and be early. I grab my old linen hoodie and my aviators on my way out the door, which I close softly so it doesn’t wake Kristin.
Diane rides up on her vintage bicycle. She’s the concierge at The Reeds at Shelter Haven, the fashionable boutique hotel where we’re staying, and the woman responsible for getting me out on the water this morning. We talk for a bit about Stone Harbor. She makes it hard to resist. This town resonates with her as Lambertville, NJ, does with me, personally and aesthetically.
Before long, Matt, my guide, pulls up, our boards in the back of his SUV.
“Good morning!” he beams. “Ready?”
In the two-minute ride to the beach, I find out Matt not only crafts custom surfboards but he’s also a Bucks native.
And then there she is, Madame Atlantic. At this hour, there’s hardly anyone on the beach. We plunge in, and beneath the surface, it’s a different kind of quiet. I wipe the water from my eyes, push the hair out of my face and then we begin to paddle out beyond the break. I have to remind myself to turn around and face the shoreline because I could keep going.
Balancing on my board, every distraction fades away, and I sync with the rhythmic undulation of the ocean.
