Tender at the Bone a memoir by Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of "Gourmet" magazine. A co-worker of Laura's loaned this book to me, knowing of my healthy obsession with all things foodie. I was a bit reluctant to get down to reading this, as my literary tastes are usually firmly situated in post-modern cynicism, and this looked, well, a bit on the touchy-feely Oprah end of the spectrum. I'm enjoying this book thoroughly. Madame Reichl's New York attitude seems to consistently watch over the narration and wards off any possibility of lingering romanticism. More importantly, her long-standing love of food penetrates every anecdote and leaves the reader inspired towards culinary adventures.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, and I'll give an update if for some reason the tale falls apart and disappoints.  So far though, the stories of her early mentors have been great fun, and the recountings of her mother's mishaps have left me nearly as embarrassed as she.  ...turning the pages quickly.

No time to write now, but here's the basic recipe at epicurious.

The New York Times has an article on the food writer for "Vogue". All I can say is, I want this guy's job.

"In the ensuing silence, Mr. Steingarten determined he was in need of a drink. So, at 11:30 he opened a $400 bottle of '89 Louis Latour Montrachet, and explained that once the agnolotti were cooked and dressed with herb-infused butter and a sprinkling of Parmesan, he would subject them to three variations before serving: one dish would be adorned with shaved white truffles, another with truffle oil, another with truffle flour."

I'm not a huge cauliflower fan, but I've had some wonderful Indian dishes with cauliflower that have developed strong association between the flavors.  I've never tried reproducing this, but was hoping to give it a first try tonight.  I found this recipe with and made it pretty much as written, adding some onions and cilantro.  The result was good, healthy, and satisfying, but not at all close the cauliflower/Indian spice combo that exist in my head.  I wasn't really expecting it to come close with simple curry powder.  I guess I'll do some research on Indian cooking and try this again soon. 

Ok, the duck wasn't actually introspective.  That's just my mood tonight.  I hardly knew the duck.

This is a mise-en-place original that I came up with tonight.  Duck just sounded yummy, but I really had no idea what a was going to do with it when I bought it at the supermarket.  The idea of serving the duck over potato pancakes with some kind of sauce crossed my mind, and I used as the start for the recipe.  I found a few recipes for duck with port sauce.  So this seemed like a good thing to shoot for, especially since we just restocked our port supply.  This was really good.  I was a bit worried when the mustard coating on the skin side of the duck completely blackened.  But although it looked scary, it didn't taste burnt at all, it actually gave some excellent depth of flavor to everything.  The port sauce is great, and the sauce and juice from the duck soak into the potato pancakes all lovely-like. 

Ingredients - Serves One

Duck
1 Duck breast
1 Clove minced garlic
1/2 tsp cracked peppercorns
2 tbsp dijon mustard
1 pinch salt

Sauce

1 Clove minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 minced shallot
1/4 Cup Port
1/2 Cup Chicken Stock
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
Beurre manie - knead 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp flour together

Latkes

1 russet potato pealed and shredded
Small handful shredded parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.  Mix garlic, peppercorns, and mustard. Coat both sides of the duck with the mustard mixture.  Sauté, skin side down, over med/hi, in a tablespoon of veg oil for about 10 minutes.  Turn to other side and sauté until brown, about 2 minutes.  Transfer to a baking dish and put in oven until thermometer registers 155F, about 10 minutes.  Remove and let rest under some foil.

Meanwhile, in the dish the duck was sautéed in, add the garlic, ginger, and shallot.  Sauté briefly in duck fat, then deglaze the pan with the port.  Let the port reduce by half, add the chicken stock and thyme.  Let this reduce by half, season to taste, and whisk in beurre manie until thickened.

Also meanwhile (the timing for this dish is slightly tricky), squeeze the shredded potato in paper toweling a couple times until they're relatively dried.  Mix with salt, pepper, and parmesan.  Make cakes in a hot buttered skillet and fry on both sides until golden brown. 

Slice duck and serve over latkes topped with sauce.