For ever and ever

I have wanted this caramel corn recipe for a very long time.


Which is weird, because I am not, in general, a caramel corn person. No matter where it comes from, it’s usually a little sticky, a little cloying, a little heavy, a little stale. But I’m crazy about this caramel corn. I saw Twilight for the first time last weekend, and basically, I am to this caramel corn as Edward Cullen is to Bella Swan. I’m in love with it. And I am destined to wrestle, for ever and ever, with a violent desire to eat it. (Also, Robert Pattinson! Hellooooo.)


I tasted this caramel corn for the first time about six years ago, when my brother David opened a restaurant called Ceiba, in Washington, DC. The executive pastry chef was also a David, a charming, double-dimpled guy named David Guas, and for the grand opening party, he made caramel corn. I remember very clearly standing in the dining room, just outside the kitchen, when a waiter came through the crowd with a platter covered in small white paper trays, the kind that fries come in at concession stands, or maybe it was actually white paper cones, or maybe I don’t remember that night so well at all, but the trays, or the cones, were filled with caramel corn. It was eerily light, crisp and snappy, sweet-salty, insane. It was this caramel corn.


Most commercial caramel corns, or the specimens I’ve tasted, at least, don’t really taste like caramel. They only taste sweet. This one tasted like true caramel. It tasted like butter and brown sugar and heat - and, crucially, a little bit of salt. It was also studded with salted peanuts. I wanted to ask if he would share the recipe, but I had only met him once or twice, and I didn’t want to seem pushy. My brother told me that they planned to serve the caramel corn as a mignardise, a little sweet something sent out with the check, so I contented myself with the thought that, whenever I ate at Ceiba, a little paper tray of it, or cone of it, would be waiting for me at the end of my meal.

Of course, Ceiba is approximately 2,700 miles from where I live. In the six years since it opened, I have eaten there exactly twice. There has been very little caramel corn in my life. And David Guas, for his part, moved on a couple of years ago, starting his own consulting company and helping restaurants across the country develop dessert menus. I mourned my lost opportunity. In my next life, I vowed, I would be pushier.

But as luck would have it, he has just come out with a cookbook, and in it, on page 154, is the caramel corn. Hellooooo.


If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you may remember that, for four Christmases in a row now, I’ve been trying to give only homemade or handmade gifts. I make and give away tins of cookies and candies, and when I do shop, I buy mainly from artists and crafters, at places like this, or this, or this, or this, or this. It makes me feel good. I also buy books, because I can’t imagine not buying books. But mostly I bake or make candy, and what I’m trying to say is: a couple of weeks ago, I drew up a long list of items to make for this year’s tins, but I cannot bring myself to start making them, because I CANNOT STOP MAKING CARAMEL CORN.

The problem is, it’s easy. And quick. You pop some popcorn, and then you put it into a bowl. You make a caramel, and you cook it to 250 degrees. You quickly dump the hot caramel over the popcorn, and then you fold it in as well as you can, and then you add salted peanuts. Then comes the clincher: you bake it for one hour in a low oven. Not all caramel corn recipes include this step, but I think it’s the deal-sealer. In the oven, the caramel, which had started to harden as you stirred it into the popcorn, gets a chance to soften again. You can now stir it into the popcorn more easily and evenly. The whole, gooey mess will crisp spectacularly as it cools, and the kitchen will smell outrageous, and then you will turn into Edward Cullen. I’m so sorry.

One last thing: don’t be upset if the peanuts don’t seem to want to stay mixed in with the popcorn. Heaven is the handful of caramel-coated peanuts left in the container after the popcorn is gone.


Caramel Corn with Salted Peanuts
Adapted from DamGoodSweet, by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel

A few notes to help you along:

- The original version of this recipe calls for microwave popcorn. I used Newman’s Own brand microwave popcorn in the “natural” flavor. However, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use stovetop or air-popped popcorn, if you’d like. You’ll need 10 cups of it, and you’ll probably want to salt it lightly, since almost all microwave popcorns have at least a little bit of added salt.
- Be sure to have a whisk and a rubber spatula close at hand. You’ll need them both on short notice.
- Before you begin cooking the caramel, measure out the baking soda and the vanilla, and chop the peanuts. You won’t have time to do it later.
- Do not try to make this recipe without a candy thermometer.
- If you plan to give this popcorn as a gift, know that it looks very handsome, and keeps nicely, in a Mason jar.

1 (3½-ounce) package plain (unbuttered natural flavor) microwave popcorn, or about 10 cups fresh popcorn popped by any method, lightly salted
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

If using microwave popcorn, pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and dump the popcorn into the bowl, taking care to pick out and discard any unpopped kernels.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it as evenly as you can. Stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days (or thereabouts).

Yield: about 10 cups

I am not kidding around

Well. It’s hard to know where to start. I’m tempted to jump right in, to say that you should hurry up and put a pot on the stove and make the pasta recipe below and let’s get back to business, shall we?, but that doesn’t seem right. First, I need to thank you. I had no idea that Delancey would swallow me up like that, and I need to thank you for being so patient, so supportive, so good to me. This restaurant is up and running today because of you. I am not kidding around about that.

I am also not kidding around when I say this: I’m ready to get back to writing. I can’t imagine not having worked at Delancey, not having worked alongside Brandon, not having put my whole self into it, especially in the beginning, but I miss writing. I wish I could do both, but as you can see by my long silence here, it doesn’t seem to work that way. Anyway, as personality types go, I am not a restaurant cook. When I’m working the line and get a dozen orders at once, I do not experience an adrenaline rush. I experience an urge to run, screaming, out the front door of the restaurant and into the street. I can hack it, but I am not wired to love it. Of course, when I’m writing, I also occasionally get an urge to throw myself into traffic, but the difference is that I love it anyway. It’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s why I am sitting here, typing this paragraph. It’s also why, as of next week, I will no longer be working a regular shift in the kitchen at Delancey. I leave my station in the very capable hands of this lady and this lady. I’ll still be there a lot of the time, doing errand-running / spot-cleaning / pinch-hitting / payroll-calculating / menu-shaping / proud co-owner duties, but mainly, I’ll be writing. If I were the squealing type, I would totally be squealing right now.

So, you know, blah blah blah, let’s get back to business, shall we? I strongly suggest that you make this stuff.



I wish I had remembered to grate some Parmesan on top before I took that picture, but that’s what I get for waiting to cook until I was wickedly hungry and then trying to mix starvation with food photography. Then, as luck would have it, when I did finally grate some cheese on top, I forgot to disable the automatic flash before pushing the shutter button. I hope you like your pasta with a side of glare. Delicious.



What you see above is the quintessential pasta dish of the Romagna part of Emilia-Romagna, tagliatelle alla Romagnola. Only I made it with penne rigate instead of tagliatelle. Either way, the basic concept is this: noodles, butter, prosciutto, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Noodles, butter, prosciutto, Parmigiano-Reggiano. It rolls off the tongue like a song, doesn’t it? I’ve been singing that one a lot lately.

I know that the days after Thanksgiving aren’t generally a time when most people want to think about butterfat, pork, and pasta, but tuck this recipe away, because you’re going to want it someday. It’s quick and pantry-friendly, and at the end of a winter day, when you’re tired and cold, it’s going to be your dinner in shining armor. If you were one of those kids who grew up on noodles with butter, or noodles with butter and Parmesan, you’re going to go kind of nuts for this. It’s what a security blanket might taste like, if you’re the type of person who eats blankets. Or, if you’re a fan of spaghetti alla carbonara, consider this its cousin, with prosciutto instead of guanciale, Parmesan instead of Pecorino, and no egg. The best part is that I learned about it from a book edited by none other than our very own Luisa Weiss! The book is Giuliano Hazan’s Thirty Minute Pasta, written by the son of the great Marcella Hazan. If a pedigree like that doesn’t make you want to put a pot of water on the stove, it is a dark day.

Here’s the idea. You buy a thick slice of prosciutto. You cut it into short, narrow strips. You put a decent pat of butter in a skillet. When the butter melts, you cook the prosciutto for a minute or two, just until its raw pink color gives way to something closer to mauve, an unusually appealing take on mauve, and the general vicinity smells like bacon, minus the smoke. It smells fantastic. Meanwhile, you boil some pasta. When the pasta is ready, you drain it and quickly dump it into the skillet. Grate some Parmesan over the whole thing, and stir and toss it with a couple of spoons. The warm butter that coated the pan now coats the noodles, and the prosciutto gets mixed up in there too, a little salty, deeply savory, rough and rustic, heady, hearty, comfortable. It’s beautiful in the way that old ladies in Italy are beautiful. You’re going to like it.


Some quick housekeeping:

- For those of you who, so long ago now, were interested in the light fixtures at Delancey, where we got them and/or how they were made, here’s a link to our designers’ website. (Once you’re there, click on WHAT WE DO.) They custom-designed the lights. They’re so good.

- I am thrilled and honored to be a part of the simply photo pop up shop, hosted by Jen Causey. I have two images in the shop: this one and this one. Jen has generously offered a 10% discount - good for any item in the shop - to readers of this blog, so jump on over, support independent artists, and be sure to type the discount code ORANGETTE at checkout.


Pasta with Fried Prosciutto, Parmesan, and Butter
Adapted from Giuliano Hazan’s Thirty Minute Pasta

I should tell you, before I go any further, that I received this book as a free review copy. That fact has not clouded my judgment, I swear. I receive many review copies that I never write about, and I only mention a recipe here if it’s a keeper. This one is.

The proper title for this dish is tagliatelle alla Romagnola, but since I didn’t use tagliatelle, I’m winging it, title-wise. I hope Mr. Hazan will forgive me. I used penne rigate, which was fine, although I’ll bet it would be even better with a long noodle – dried egg tagliatelle, ideally. I have written the recipe below for one serving, because I usually make it when I’m working at home alone and in need of a quick meal, but the recipe scales up very easily. The original recipe, as Mr. Hazan wrote it, serves four and uses four ounces of prosciutto, 4 four tablespoons of butter, and so on.

1 oz. prosciutto, sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Kosher salt
About 3 ounces dried pasta, preferably egg tagliatelle
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Fill a deep pot with water for the pasta. Salt the water well. Place over high heat, and bring to a boil.

Cut the prosciutto into narrow strips – about ¼ to ½ inch wide – and then cut the strips into short segments, each about 1 inch long. Warm the butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the prosciutto, and season with a tiny pinch of kosher salt. Cook until the prosciutto has lost its raw color, but not long enough for it to brown, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.

When the water boils, cook the pasta until it is al dente. Drain it – but not too thoroughly; you want the noodles to still be coated with some moisture – and turn it into the skillet with the prosciutto. Toss. Grate a little Parmigiano-Reggiano on top, and toss again. Serve immediately, with more Parmigiano-Reggiano to taste.

Yield: 1 serving

Where I've been

This morning, someone pointed out to me that it has been a month, exactly a month, a whole month, since I last posted here. I nearly choked.

The truth is, I’ve been having a hard time. Nothing around here looks the same as it did, pre-restaurant, and to be perfectly honest, though I like this new life, I also miss the old one. There’s no point in trying to hide it. I’ve been dealing with a lot of exhaustion, and it’s been difficult to feel creative, eager to cook and write here - or do pretty much anything except watch Battlestar Galactica on Netflix. It’s a dire situation when you go to the dentist, as I did this morning, and it actually feels relaxing, like some sort of reprieve, to get to sit there for an hour with a faceful of metal instruments and suction devices. Listen, you people out there who have babies and operate on a constant sleep deficit and STILL manage to blog: you’re a miracle. I don’t know how you do it. Maybe it’s the fact that babies are cute? If Delancey could nuzzle my neck and coo, maybe everything would feel easier.

Either way, what I really wanted to say is this: that I haven’t forgotten about you, or about our conversations here, and that I am trying to find my way back. The first step is for me to cut back my hours at the restaurant, which I have just begun to do. Then, of course, I have to figure out where the hell my energy went. And I have to acknowledge, too, that things are just different around here. It’s a new balancing act, and I have yet to master it. But I want to. Soon.

What I do now

So, I wasn’t kidding about the black hole. But I’m sorry to have been gone from here for so long. I’ve missed you.

Delancey is getting easier. As of two weeks ago, we now have a prep cook to work in the mornings, which means that instead of going in at 9 am to receive the first deliveries, Brandon can now go in around 11 am, and I go in sometime between noon and 2 pm, depending on the day’s prep list. We still get home around midnight, but it feels a lot easier than it did a couple of weeks ago. We’re getting more sleep, for one thing, but even more importantly, we know what to expect now. That’s the key, I think. In the beginning, I would be mopping the floor at the end of the night, thinking I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO MOP THIS STUPID STUPID STUPID FLOOR AT ONE IN THE MORNING WHY DOES PIZZA HAVE TO BE SO MESSY AND STUPID THIS RESTAURANT IS SO MESSY AND STUPID WHERE IS THE NEAREST SHARP OBJECT SO I CAN STAB MYSELF AND GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM AND MAYBE THERE I CAN ACTUALLY GET SOME SLEEP, but now I just think, Ah yes, here I am again, mopping the floor late at night. This is what I do now.


Over the past couple of months, a number of people have told me that opening a restaurant seems a lot like having a baby, and while I can’t say for sure, since we are not at all in the baby-having business, I think I know what they mean. You can prepare for a baby, or a restaurant, in many ways, but when it actually comes, it changes everything. The shape of your life is completely different. You are exhausted. This baby, or this restaurant, or whatever it is, is wholly dependent on you. It does not stop. And while you eventually adjust, and it adjusts to you, nothing ever quite goes back to the way it used to be. I am just figuring this out.

But it’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing. I love this restaurant. I love our staff. I love our customers. I’m learning so much. Brandon is learning so much. We’re learning so much. And it really does get easier. I’ve done payroll three times now, and only the first time did I come close to screaming. I actually kind of enjoy it now. I do it twice a month, in the mornings, and I use my TI-85 calculator, the one I got for trigonometry class in high school. We’ve been together for almost 15 years. We’re tight.


And we’re starting to be able to play with the menu a bit, which feels good. We’re now making our own pork sausage, and we’re doing a lot of pickling: peppers, shallots, cucumbers, Walla Walla onions, you name it. This morning, as I type this, Brandon is working on an eggplant sauce for pizza, based on a killer pasta sauce that my friend Francis made up. If it works out, it’ll be on the menu tonight. And last week, we started serving burrata. You probably can’t tell, but that last sentence was a very, very exciting sentence to write. I am nuts for burrata. We buy ours from Gioia, a cheesemaker in LA, and it gets overnighted to us twice a week. We serve it as a first course, with a dousing of olive oil, some sea salt, and a few toasts. I am deeply in love with it. But every time I plate one, I die a little, because at the end of the week, it means one less leftover burrata for me.


We’re also changing up the dessert menu, now that fall is coming on. The chocolate chip cookies are still there, and possibly will be forever, but the chilled peaches in wine are gone, as are the popsicles. Instead, there’s plum crumble. That’s what all of these pictures are of, in case you were wondering. I know it took me a while to get around to explaining that.


I learned about this crumble recipe about two years ago, from Luisa. I made it a couple of times that summer, and it went instantly into my keeper file. It’s pretty straightforward, as most specimens of the crumble genre are, but unlike some, it’s not gloppy, gluey, or the least bit too sweet. It calls for my favorite kind of plum - Italian prune plums, the deep purple, oblong ones that come out in late summer - and it doesn’t mess with them much. Before going into the pan, they get a very small amount of brown sugar, even smaller amounts of ground ginger and cinnamon, just enough flour to give their juices some body, and a gentle kick in the seat from some crystallized ginger. The topping comes together a little like streusel, as Luisa so rightly described it, in hand-formed clumps and particles, which you pile on top of the plums. Then you spoon melted butter - what seems like a lot of melted butter, but be strong, be strong - over the whole thing. Once in the oven, the topping goes pale brown and pleasingly lumpy, crisp in some parts, chewy in others, soft where it meets the jammy fruit underneath: a perfect compromise, I would say, between crumble, spice cake, and cookie. I serve it with housemade crème fraîche, but it hardly needs the help.

Most nights, I make two 9”-by-13” pans of this stuff, and most nights, I want to hoard about half of it for myself. If it weren’t for the servers, who stop by every few minutes with new orders and expect to find me working, I would probably get a spoon and hide in the corner by the chest freezer. Then I’d start in on the burrata.



Plum Crumble
Adapted from Marion Burros and Luisa Weiss

The original version of this recipe is hard to improve upon, but I have made a couple of small changes. When I measure the sugar for the topping, I keep it on the scant side, because I like my plums solidly sweet-tart. I also reduced the butter a bit, because it seemed to want to pool in a kind of scary way at the bottom of the pan. Cutting it back even a little seems to help a lot.

At Delancey, I make this crumble in bigger batches, and it scales up beautifully. If you need to feed a crowd, try tripling the recipe as I’ve written it below, and bake it in a 9”-by-13” dish, as pictured above. Works like a charm.

For the plums:
2 Tbsp. lightly packed brown sugar
1 ½ Tbsp. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground ginger
2 Tbsp. finely chopped crystallized ginger
12 to 14 Italian prune plums, halved and pitted

For the topping:
Scant ¾ cup granulated sugar (about 4 to 4 ½ ounces)
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 egg, beaten well
7 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Position a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat the oven to 375°F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the seasoning for the plums: the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, ginger, and crystallized ginger. Add the plums, and gently stir to coat. Arrange the plums skin side up in an ungreased deep 9-inch pie plate.

In another medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients for the topping: the granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to blend well. Add the egg. Using your hands, mix thoroughly, squeezing and tossing and pinching handfuls of the mixture, to produce moist little particles. Sprinkle evenly over the plums.

Spoon the butter evenly over the topping, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is browned and the plums yield easily when pricked with toothpick. Cool.

Serve crumble warm or at room temperature, with crème fraîche, thick yogurt, or unsweetened whipped cream.

Yield: about 6 servings

Note: To reheat leftovers, it’s best to do it slowly, in an oven set to 300 degrees.

Wonder of wonders

Well, the bad news is that I seem to have fallen into a black hole called Delancey.

But the good news is that we’re open. And that Brandon and I are still alive! And that somehow, people are coming to our little restaurant! And, get this: I actually managed to take a picture of one of the pizzas. Wonder of wonders! I can die happy now. No, really, right now. I’m tired.



This particular pizza looks sort of cockeyed and misshapen, but please bear with me. (Secretly, I like them that way.) It also looks small, because it’s sitting on a huge metal plate. In person, it’s our normal size, I swear, which is to say about 12 inches in diameter. This pie was a test run one afternoon, when Brandon bought a case of padron chiles and was trying to decide how to use them. He tossed them with olive oil and gray salt, roasted them in a skillet in the wood-fired oven, and then stemmed them and tore them into strips. They’re medium-hot - enough to make your lips burn, but not incendiary - and the best part is, they have a huge amount of flavor on top of that heat. Maybe this is a useless comparison, but they remind me of some green chiles that I once had on a cheeseburger in Albuquerque. (I have a soft spot for New Mexico.) Anyway, Brandon put his roasted padrons on top of a pizza with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, aged mozzarella, and Grana Padano. It’s on the menu now, and we call it the “Padron.” That’s about as creative as our naming scheme gets around here.



It’s hard to say how these first weeks have gone, because we’re still so much in the thick of it. We’ve been running on adrenaline, for the most part. But it’s gone as smoothly as I could have hoped, I think. There have been glitches to work out in the kitchen, and a certain amount of slowness, and a few requisite catastrophes: refrigerators breaking, exhaust fans not working, beer taps not working, my head almost exploding, and so on. But people are coming in to eat, and we get to cook for them, and that’s what this is about. When everything goes right, and when people leave happy, it feels better than almost anything. Last night was our tenth night open, and for the first time, just for a second, I was able to look around and smile at the people at the bar and think, Here we are. We’re actually doing this.



Before we started this process, I understood on a cerebral level that people in the restaurant industry work hard, but I didn’t really know what that meant. I somehow didn’t realize that Brandon and I would be at Delancey from 9 am to 1 am the next day, every day, or that we would be on our feet for 95% of that time. Granted, we are very, very inefficient right now, and we have a lot to fix and learn and decide and improve, but there are certain parts of this work that won’t change. Like the fact that many of our vendors deliver at nine in the morning, and that someone has to be there to meet them. And the fact that the dough has to be made after service each night, around 11 pm. And after the dough is made, the floor has to be swept and mopped. You would not believe how much flour winds up on the floor of a pizzeria. It will not be controlled. I think it actually breeds at night, while we sleep. It’s devising a plot to take over the world. I’m sure of it.



I know that I have a tendency to make opening a restaurant sound about as fun as being eaten alive by a bear - and it does sometimes feel that way - but to be fair, I should tell you that there’s a lot of magic in it too. Like, for example, around four in the afternoon, when the servers start to set up the dining room. I wish you could be there. They set the tables, light the votives, and fill the water glasses, and on the surface, it seems like pretty routine stuff. But the room has this quiet hum to it, this sort of potential energy, that I find so peaceful. I look forward to it every day.



And there’s this table. Someday, when I get to eat in my own restaurant, I want to sit at this table in the window. I like to fantasize about it sometimes. It’s better, at least, than thinking about flour particles breeding.



Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a quote that I used to have written on a piece of paper on the wall near my desk. It was by the German poet Goethe, and I don’t know where I first heard it or where that piece of paper is now, but what it said was, “Do not hurry. Do not rest.”



I think about it almost every day. It’s only six words, but it sums up right now so well.

Tonight at five

It’s very peaceful at Delancey right now. I’m going to try to remember what this feels like.


Wait. Is the art in this photo crooked, or is it just me? Maybe my eyes are crooked. Anything is possible. Delancey opens tonight at five.

There’s no signage outside the building yet, but that’ll be fixed soon. It’s at the top of our to-do list. In the meantime, for those of you in the Seattle area, maybe this map will help you find us? Our address is 1415 NW 70th Street. (It might be helpful, too, to know that we’re one block north of Ballard High School, directly across the street from a bar called Tarasco, and right next to Honore Bakery.) Like our signage, our web site is also still a work in progress, but our phone is up and running, and I consider that a small victory. The number is 206.838.1960. If you would like to reserve a table, please note that we take reservations for parties of six or more only. We’re open from Wednesday to Sunday, dinner only, from five to ten-ish.

A number of you have asked about our menu, so I should probably tell you about that, too. It will change often, depending on the season and what we can buy from local farmers, but this is the one we’re opening with. The scan is wonky, I know, but bear with me. If you click on it, it will enlarge to a much more readable size.



Eventually, we’ll get a stamp with our logo and bang it down at the top of each menu with some nice, orange-red ink, but until then, I’m writing the restaurant name by hand. It’s kind of a pain, and sometimes my mind wanders midway through the stack and I lose my ability to spell, but it makes me happy. So, I should mention, do chilled peaches in white wine.


I made these on a whim last week, tossed them up onto the menu, and they might now be my favorite dessert. (For this week, at least.) You just take some peaches, slice them, toss them with sugar, and then dump a bottle of dry white wine on top. Then you put them in the fridge for a while. You can serve them after only a half-day or so, and they’ll taste fantastic, like a very classy, grown-up version of peaches in light syrup. But after a whole day or two, they start to go translucent, and then they’re even better: thoroughly soused, barely sweet, cool and refreshing, almost dangerously easy to eat. (I did not mean to make that rhyme. Or half-rhyme. Whatever. Swear.) Before summer ends, you really should make some. I insist. Especially if you live too far away to come to Delancey and let me make them for you.



Chilled Peaches in White Wine
Adapted from A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, by David Tanis

I’ve tried this method with a couple of different wines, but my favorite is Domaine de Pellehaut “Harmonie de Gascogne.” It’s on our wine list, and it’s hard not to love: crisp and light, a little grapefruity, not too expensive - and perfect, perfect for peaches. And about the peaches themselves: be sure to choose specimens that are firm and meaty, not watery or mealy.

8 ripe peaches (white or yellow, or a mixture), washed well and rubbed dry
4 Tbsp. sugar, or more to taste
1 bottle (750 ml) dry white wine

Slice the peaches thinly. (I get about 16 slices per peach.) Combine the peaches and sugar, and toss gently to mix. Add the wine, and toss gently again. Taste, and adjust sugar as needed. (Brandon likes them a little sweeter than I do.) Cover, and refrigerate for several hours - or up to a few days, if you want.

Serve the peaches cold, in a glass or shallow bowl, with a small ladleful of their liquid. Eat the peaches with a fork and then drink the liquid left in the glass.

Yield: about 8 servings

Figuring it out

I meant to post this last Friday. You can see how well I did with that.


I also meant to take a picture of some pizza, since that’s what this whole business is about, but that didn’t work out either. The cook we hired to help Brandon with the pizzas didn’t show up for his first official day of work - the day before our first pre-opening dinner - which has left only Brandon and me in the kitchen. That means that I do my work at my station, run over to his station to help top and finish pizzas, and then run back to my station again. This has not left much time for photography - or breathing, or thinking, or sleeping. If I ever see our no-show again, I am going to break his face. Mark my words. In the meantime, Brandon has burned his business card in the pizza oven. Do not cross us, people.

But as of this evening, we’ve found two people to work part-time until we find a full-time cook. We’re going to sleep better tonight.



And not only will we sleep better, but I will dream of tomato salads. I have three boxes, three whole boxes, of these beauty queens sitting at my station. These particular specimens, called Big Beef, were grown by Billy Allstot, a farmer in Tonasket, Washington. Billy grows the best tomatoes at the farmers’ market, and they cost a small fortune, and we’re so proud to serve them. For our first pre-opening dinner, I used them in a composed salad, along with fingerling potatoes, green beans, hard-boiled egg, anchovy, and shallot vinaigrette. The second night, I cut them into thick slices and topped them with fresh corn cut from the cob, cherry tomatoes (again from Billy), basil, and more shallot vinaigrette.


My mother was here for our first dinner, and as it turns out, she is an absolute champ of a sous chef. She also bought sunflowers for the bar, and on our night off, she treated us to beers and bourbon sours. She was in town for five days, and I don’t know how we could have made it without her. I cried when she left. I have never been as tired as I am right now. I never even knew that I could be so tired.



But I never seem to get tired of making raspberry yogurt popsicles, which is good, because I’ve already made almost two hundred of them. I’m in love. They’re one of two items on our soft opening dessert menu, along with bittersweet chocolate chip cookies with gray salt. The popsicles up there, the ones in the photo, were from one of my test batches, made in small glass juice jars. At the restaurant, I make them in vodka shooter glasses. I’ve only broken two glasses so far, and our dishwasher has broken three. It’s not a terrible record, I don’t think. We’re figuring it out. Not just popsicles, but everything.


I can’t say much more tonight. It’s almost midnight, and I’m still at the restaurant, and I’ve got tomatoes to go home and dream about. But if you want to read a bit about one of our first dinners - and get a look at the pizza! - go read this. And for a peek into the dining room this past Sunday night, click over here. (Thank you, Lorna and Viv!)

I’ll see you in a little bit.