Columns

It doesn’t have to be a minefield. I always check out a restaurant’s wine list online before I visit. Pick out a few wines in your price range and spend a few minutes researching them. It’s a worthwhile investment of your time. Better to spend the evening gazing into the eyes of your loved one that staring at a wine list, no?

Tell the sommelier what you’re looking for, and don’t shy away from establishing a price range. Tell her you want something under $40 — or if you feel awkward saying a dollar amount out loud, point to a wine in your price range on the list and tell her you want something for around that price. Mention some wines you know you like (or ones you don’t) to give her a sense of your taste.

Word to the wise: asking for a “dry” wine is virtually meaningless. Almost every wine on the list will be made in a “dry” style. If by “dry” you mean mouth-drying and a little bitter, like oversteeped tea, then you really mean “tannic.” (Wines made from Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, can be quite tannic.) And if you mean zesty and mouth-puckering, like a glass of tart lemonade, then you mean “acidic.” (Sauvignon Blanc is the quintessential example here.) Being precise with these terms will help you get what you want.

Finally, look beyond the tried-and-true (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Napa) for the best values. Southern France and Spain are two regions I always look to, as well as off-the-beaten track regions in California. And this is just me, but I rarely order Pinot Noir-based wines when I’m out at a restaurant. It’s very tough to get this grape right. Inexpensive Pinots aren’t much to write home about–and good Pinots at a restaurant mark-up can be seriously pricey.

I am a huge fan of homemade gift giving, even for Valentine’s Day. Today I’ve rounded up some of my favorite chocolate recipes that are perfect for gift giving. There is something here for everyone. Whether you are looking for a sexy chocolate sauce for your sweetie, or a more cheerful cookie for a friend, all they require is a little naptime baking, a clear plastic bag tied with a ribbon, and your gift is ready!

1. Homemade Chocolate Sauce: This luscious sauce can be made with or without the peppermint extract and is perfect for drizzling over ice cream or pound cake.

The Venue: Caroline and Jim’s House

The Occasion: Mardi Gras

My friend Caroline is a native New Orleanean and, although she now lives in Connecticut, she always pulls out all the stops when it comes to celebrating Mardi Gras. At her party last weekend she served the most amazing spread of food including crawfish pies, salad with crab salad, gumbo, king cake (I got the baby!!!), and these bourbon slushies. I would’ve written about them earlier this week, but I just now recovered from my hangover. I am not a big bourbon drinker but holy cow were these good. And potent. And totally beyond any kind of cocktail party drink I’ve ever had.

Today I invited my friend Jeni Britton Bauer, the genius behind Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, easily the most luscious and addictive artisanal ice cream I’ve ever tasted, to join me for a little kitchen Q & A. I am a huge fan of Jeni’s New York Times bestselling book, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, and love her philosophy on using the power of business to create positive change in the world. Clearly Jeni’s business is booming, but I was also curious to take a peek under the tent. For someone who runs a rapidly expanded business, I wanted to know what she cooked for her husband and two young children after hours. Here she reveals how she feeds her family, her take on winter ice cream, and the adult meal she is planning for Valentine’s Day!

1. Your book, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, dominated our kitchen last summer. I found myself whipping up lots of ice cream base during naptime and churning it with my daughter after she woke up. Do you ever make ice cream at home with your kids?

My kids, especially my oldest daughter Greta, have always loved getting into the kitchen with me. In fact, when I was testing about 100 batches of ice cream as I worked towards innovating the perfect ice cream base for the recipe in Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, I did so with Greta, as a small baby, strapped on my back. She was with me the whole way through that process and I think the memory will always be something we share. I also to involve my kids in testing new flavors at home. Their palates continue to surprise me. They’re never afraid to try new flavors, and are even less timid to express their feelings about them.

This is the latest installment of my Powernap column. The series where I share quick, easy food that can be made for all kinds of situations. Powernaps are short and sweet, and so are these recipes. These are the things I make in a jiffy when I need a quick snack, am in the mood for a recipe experiment, or simply need to clean out the pantry.

My friend Kirsten and I are always exchanging recipe tips on Facebook. We would prefer to chat about cooking in person, but she presently lives in Tokyo so Facebook and email are our best bet for direct communication at the moment! Last week she shared her new favorite method for making clean-eating chicken chili: adding a healthy scoop of quinoa for texture. Genius! I thought. Having recently begun to work with quinoa myself, I was excited to give her idea a shot.

Today I invited my friend’s Brooke Parkhurst and James Briscione, the charming duo behind Just Married & Cooking, to share some of their tips for setting the Valentine’s mood while a toddler roams the house. I first met James when we were both recipe winners on Food52, and then met them again last year at the debut of the OXO Tot line. Since then their awesome cookbook, Just Married and Cooking: 200 Recipes for Living, Eating and Entertaining Together, was published and they’ve been popping up all around town. I urge everyone to join the fun on their Facebook fanpage too! I am so thrilled they are here today to share some fabulous tips and positively delicious recipes. With this post they can easily restore all the faith of all parents that a romantic home cooked Valentine’s Day meal IS indeed possible!

Nothing spells romance quite like a busy toddler banging on your pots and pans while kiddy music wails from the iPod. How do you recommend parents find their inner zen in the kitchen when trying to create a special meal just for them?

We’re not opposed to asking for a little help—especially when it comes to special nights like Valentine’s or anniversaries. Even though you’re cooking and eating in and won’t need a babysitter for six hours, it wouldn’t hurt to have one for crunch time (what we call “crazy time”), 4-7pm.

Also, trying to make the kids feel as if they’re included in this special new ritual—instead of pushing them out of the kitchen—will almost guarantee better behavior.  Our daughter, Parker Lee, loves when we give her a ball of pizza dough (about the size of her tiny fist) and our wooden rolling pin. To her, the dough is ten times cooler than Playdo because she’s able to eat her art project! We top it with a four-cheese mixture and roasted butternut squash or chorizo bits.

She happily toddles off with her pizza and we *finally* open a bottle of wine or shake up a house cocktail.

What are your secrets for setting a romantic scene that won’t be wrecked before it is actually time for dinner?

“Chef’s tables” are big in restaurants, so why not at home? We don’t spend our best moments at the dining room table but, instead, standing at the stove and at the kitchen counter, actually creating the meal and sampling the flavors. (I’m a little embarrassed to admit, we also fight over who gets to lick the beaters!) So I love setting the scene and making this space delicious and pretty. (Even better that our 2 ½ year-old budding chef can’t reach that high!)

While we’re doing our biggest prep work, I set out a charcuterie plate and our best wine glasses. When dinner’s almost ready, and Jamie’s putting the finishing touches on our plates, I quickly change the scene by laying down a pretty, patterned table runner (easier than a tablecloth), our French pottery, a hodge podge of candles (never scented- you don’t want to distract from the food) and cloth napkins. I’m really into using the beautiful , sturdy, French kitchen towels by Les Etoiles de Soleil (www.lesetoilesdesoleil.com) as my dinner napkins for special occasions.

When good friends come over we love to entertain with soup. With familiar faces at the table we have no problem slurping away while making conversation. In the winter we prefer hot, substantial soups. These can easily be served with a side of roasted vegetables and sandwich to make a complete meal. The other day I decided to make this soup in order to use up the excessive amount of cheese and beer we seemed to have in our fridge. I still can’t figure out why we had it all, it must have accumulated over the course of a couple of weeks.

As evidenced by the extensive family breakfast recipe list I’ve accumulated we take breakfast very seriously in this house. I got this from my parents, we always ate big breakfasts each morning growing up. My mother, a teacher, rightfully acknowledged that a healthy breakfast is a great way for both children and adults to start the day. I’ve carried on this tradition with my daughter, we eat breakfast together every morning. Of course, just because we consider breakfast a necessity – we all wake up with growling tummies – it doesn’t mean it has to be boring or difficult to make. Here are eight of our favorite hot breakfasts. I make a lot of these after my daughter is asleep. Or, they are classic powernap recipes and come together in a moment’s notice. Here is to wishing you a warm, cozy winter morning full of hot breakfasts!

1. Overnight Slow-Cooker Vanilla Bean & Almond French Toast: This super simple recipes is perfect for feeding a crowd and doesn’t require any baking in the morning. Be a bedtime chef, flip the switch before you go to bed and wake up to a hot breakfast ready to go!

2. Vegetable Pie: This protein packed pie is a gorgeous winter breakfast that can filled up with nearly any kind of vegetable you have on hand. Bake it up for a Sunday brunch and save any leftovers for dinner!

3. Easy Sticky Buns; These quick buns are so much fun to make and are perfect served up cold morning. They can easily be prepped the night before and baked up fresh.

4. Double Egg-n-Bacon Sandwich: This awesome, greasy sandwich is ideal when you need a filling breakfast to power you through a busy morning. The ultimate powernap recipe, it comes together in minutes and gets the day off to a great start.

5. Cinnamon-Blueberry Waffles: Homemade waffles are the key to my daughter’s heart. I always have the dry mix stocked in the pantry so I can whip them up on demand.

6. Cinnamon-Sugar Strawberry Steel Cut Oat Loaf: My current favorite healthy hot breakfast, this hearty loaf cooks overnight and is ready first thing. Cut out a slice each day to warm up and enjoy first thing!

7. Whole Wheat Cranberry Spice Oat Muffins: These healthy muffins are a terrific winter bite, especially since apples are still available in the northeast. We often pack these in our bags if we need breakfast on the go, or for a mid-morning snack.

8. Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Bean Glaze:  These rolls are undeniably decadent which makes them perfect for an occasional winter treat. We find them particularly rewarding on Friday mornings, our little reward for getting through the week!

What’s Going on Today: Typical crazy day at home followed by sledding after school!

Naptime Goals: Meetings and catching up on writing, slow cooker lasagna already simmering away for dinner.

Tonight’s Menu: Lasagna, Salad and Wine. After the kiddo goes to sleep prep breakfast tomorrow!

Until recently my daughter would finish her substantial plate of cinnamon waffles while I was still clutching hot tea and waiting for my oatmeal to cook. I’ve recently remedied this problem by preparing my steel cut oats in the slow-cooker the night before after my daughter was asleep, enabling us to eat breakfast together every morning. Prepping steel cut oats in the slow cooker overnight is an extremely popular winter breakfast, but I hadn’t tried it myself until this month. Once I realized how well the method works I started doing it weekly, piling in the oats after bedtime and digging into my hot cereal alongside my daughter the next morning. The leftovers of each batch were stored in a loaf pan so all week I could cut out a big slice and warm it up in an instant each morning.

Today I am chatting with my friend Georgia Pellegrini about her new book, Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time. I read this book in two days flat and loved every second of it. It is all about chef and author Georgia’s personal journey to learn about the origins of her food and ultimately solve her own ominvore’s dilemma. This message resonated with me because where I grew up in Cooperstown, New York many of the families I knew hunted all fall to feed their families all winter. It was not about sport and reckless killing, it was about feeding a family responsibly and inexpensively, as well as respecting the wildlife in the area. Families depended, and still do, on hunting to put food on the table. I am so excited that Georgia is here today to share her story. To win a copy of her book see below!

1. Girl Hunter is about much more than hunting, it is about your coming to terms with your own views on eating meat and preserving wildlife. You say “I’m an omnivore who has solved my dilemma.” Can you elaborate on your hunting and eating mantra?

It is based off of my belief that we are all natural omnivores, regardless of the food choices we make. Our dilemma, which scientist Paul Rozin wrote about in 1976, and which writer Michael Pollan made accessible, is what we should have for dinner when we have so many food choices. The dilemma is even more important today because our industrial food system is so contaminated with corn, and hormones, and sick animals, that we humans are faced with the dilemma of what to eat so as not to get sick. My personal solution is hunting and gathering. When done ethically, this is the last natural and instinctive interplay between humans, the land, and animals. Hunting is an act involving all of the senses and I believe one of the most natural ways of being human on this planet. It is part of the natural cycle of life, humans eat animals and plants, animals eat animals and plants, plants feed from the dirt, and we turn to dirt. I think that is the part people have a hard time with—where there is the flow of life there is also the flow of death, and they have to acknowledge their own mortality.

This is the latest installment of my Powernap column. The series where I share quick, easy food that can be made for all kinds of situations. Powernaps are short and sweet, and so are these recipes. These are the things I make in a jiffy when I need a quick snack, am in the mood for a recipe experiment, or simply need to clean out the pantry.

Last week I noticed my stash of frozen bananas had grown a little too large. I always have at least three in there for emergency banana bread, but during the holidays I didn’t bake any so the pile had grown to nine. We were in need of some fresh snack food so this was perfect timing. Underneath the bananas I also found the last of the pecans I’d use to make Spiced Pecan Snowballs for Christmas. With these two things in hand, and an hour until school let out, I decided to whip up a fresh loaf of banana and top it with a crunchy pecan streusel. I had never topped banana bread with anything before, but there is a first time for everything, right?

Slow Cooker Challenge Week!: Don’t forget it is Naptime Chef & Small Kitchen College Sl0w Cooker Challenge week. Come over to see our amazing sponsors and for your chance to win a brand-new slow-cooker!

I have to finish off the slow cooker challenge with something that the adults will love: slow cooker cocktails. I mean, who doesn’t love a good cocktail in the middle of winter? I know I do. I love to keep hot punches warm in the slow cooker when we entertain, mulled cider and mulled wine work particularly well. Knowing this I decided to winterize one of our favorite summer drinks and have it waiting for dinner guests on evening.