Mouthing Off

Showstopping desserts can outshine buttery mashed potatoes and perfect stuffing on Thanksgiving. That's the opinion of Tiffany MacIsaac, who oversees the pastry program for the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, which operates Birch & Barley and Tallua in the Washington, DC, area. MacIsaac likes to put holiday sweets—in particular, pie—on mouthwatering display from the start so guests can admire dessert from the moment they arrive.

At Buzz Bakery in Alexandria, VA, she's now offering a DIY Pie Bar package that comes with two pies (like Chocolate-Bourbon Pecan and Classic Pumpkin), house-made ice cream, cinnamon whipped cream, caramel sauce and candied cranberries. Since Buzz doesn't ship its baked goods, MacIsaac shared these tips on how to set up a DIY Pie Bar at home.

1. Make it a group project. Guests usually ask the host how they can contribute to the holiday meal. You can plan a cohesive, pie-centric menu for Thanksgiving and delegate specific components to invitees. If one guest brings pumpkin pie, others can take on gingersnap cookie crumbs and caramel sauce, and non-cooks can be in charge of bringing beautiful cake stands. The display will grow into something fantastically unexpected as the guests arrive.

2. Don't pay for props. MacIsaac repurposes items from around the house for the display. A stack of books works as a pedestal; fallen leaves make an easy accent to scatter around the table; an old frame refines the look of a printed menu. Lighting is especially important. Everyone looks good by candlelight and the same goes for food.

3. Incorporate traditional fall flavors. During the holidays, people look for familiar foods. If you experiment with something new like salted-caramel cream pie, you can also offer a super-old-fashioned option like double-crust apple pie or upgrade a classic, as in a meringue-topped sweet potato pie.

4. Consider textures. You don’t want all mush or all crunch when it comes to a pie or the toppings you set out for guests. With the pie bar, everyone gets whipped cream, nuts, cookie crumbs, sauce.

5. Master the pie crust. Besides the logistics of setting up a dessert display, the most basic rule of a great pie bar is to make delicious pies, and that starts with good crust. MacIsaac likes a nice amount of salt in the dough to balance the sweetness of fillings. And she says you might want to add vodka, not to your glass, but to the water as you mix the dough. It evaporates more quickly, so you’re left with less moisture, which makes for a more tender, flaky crust. In a dough recipe calling for water, MacIsaac subs vodka for about 1/6 to 1/4 of the water.

 

Related: Thanksgiving Desserts
Thanksgiving Pies
5 Easy Ways to Ruin the Thanksgiving Turkey

There are some days I really wish I lived in Washington, DC; for instance, while I impatiently wait for Georgetown Cupcakes to open in Manhattan. Or when I hear about a new restaurant from F&W Best New Chef 2007 Johnny Monis, from F&W's superb DC correspondent, Amanda McClements of Metrocurean.com. Here's McClements' first look:

Fans of Johnny Monis's cooking, myself included, have wondered if the intensely focused chef would ever branch out from his kitchen at the tiny Komi near Dupont Circle. About eight years to the day since he opened Komi, Monis quietly unveiled his latest project, Little Serow.

Distance-wise, he didn't go far—the new restaurant occupies the basement of the brick rowhouse right next to Komi—but cooking-wise, the two restaurants are worlds apart.

Komi strongly reflects Monis's Greek heritage, but the casual new spot is devoted to the spicy, sour flavors of northeastern Thailand's Isaan cuisine. His set menu of communal dishes is $45 for walk-ins only. At a recent meal, I had delicious pork skin, still crackling from the fryer, with nam prik num (green chile) sauce, plus spicy cucumber salad with dried shrimp and lemongrass-flavored pork sausage.

Why Isaan cooking? "Isaan food has a flavor profile that I love eating on my days off, and it's what I've been cooking for staff meal and behind the scenes for years," Monis says. He has another connection to the region: He got married to his wife, Anne, on a trip there earlier this year.  (Little Serow: 1511 17th St. NW, Washington, DC)

With the finale of Top Chef: Just Desserts last week, pastry fans across the country will miss their weekly fix of handsome judge Johnny Iuzzini. Those considering a major holiday splurge can now get up close with the Jean Georges pastry chef and his powerhouse boss, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, in New York City. The Trump International Hotel & Tower recently launched a $9,999 Culinary Master Course package that includes a three-night stay, a private cooking demo by JGV and a personal pastry class with Iuzzini (plus breakfast at Nougatine and a three-course dinner at Jean Georges). While booking the demo, guests choose themes tied to Vongerichten's restaurants: Jean Georges (French), JoJo (Mediterranean), ABC Kitchen (organic and local), Spice Market (Asian) or Perry Street (New American). For the hands-on pastry session, Iuzzini teaches the basics of cake baking, tuiles, ice creams and sorbets.

 

New Orleans–based chef John Besh released his second cookbook this week: My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking, a collection of simple, comfort-food recipes. The longtime Louisiana booster has also been making moves to support Gulf seafood. In the New Year, Besh will open his ninth restaurant, Borgne, which emphasizes the region’s coastal cuisine. He shared recipes for shrimp bisque and swordfish picatta in this month’s Food & Wine, and even features a chapter in his new book called “How to Cook a Fish.” Since this "What Not to Do"series revolves around disaster prevention, we asked Besh to describe the worst offenses you can commit against seafood.

1. Buy bad fish. The easiest way to foul a fish dish is to not have a relationship with your fishmonger. If you don’t know where the fish is coming from and when it was caught, you’re making the first mistake.

2. Over season. You can mask a fish's delicate flavor with too many spices. We're in this day and age when everyone has a can of something they love to shake over food. But not all cans are created equal, and fish requires restraint; a little touch of salt will go a long way. An exception would be a really firm fish that's great for grilling, and can also handle heavier seasoning.

3. Cook it like chicken. People beat up fish by treating it like chicken or beef. Fish should be cooked as little as possible. When you overcook it, it pulls apart and gets very dry, since there's not that much fat. People who don’t like rarer fish can cook it, but no more than medium. You can test for doneness the same way you would with any other meat—to the touch. You want to cook it so the flesh slightly springs back when you push on it with your finger. Beware of carryover cooking, which is when food continues to cook even though it's been taken off the heat. Unlike meats that take 10 to 20 minutes to rest, fish are made to be eaten straight from the pan.

4. Disregard the style of fish. The texture will tell you how to cook it. A white, light, flaky fish like sole is easy as sin to overcook. Sole is meant for a little flour and brown butter in a pan—a squeeze of Meyer lemon and you’re in business. If you grill something delicate, you’ll taste the smoke instead of the fish. Mahi mahi and tuna, on the other hand, are great for the grill.

5. Make a heavy sauce. Fish are delicate, and when they’re fresh, you should be able to taste the sea. Fish have a lot of flavor and you want to sauce them in a way that will elevate the flavor, not steal the show. Vinaigrettes are under-rated; grilled salmon needs just a citrusy, sweet-sour vinaigrette. Lemon and butter are two things that white flakey fishes crave.

Related: John Besh's New Orleans Recipes
Quick Fish Recipes
Thanksgiving Recipes

F&W's November issue checks in on some of America's most revered food and wine families—not the matriarchs and patriarchs, but the children and grandchildren, who are chefs, winemakers and tastemakers doing incredible things in their own right.

A GREEK TRADITION

Jimmy Bannos, Jr. (left), learned to cook at his father's Cajun restaurant, Heaven on Seven, in Chicago. But at his pork-centric restaurant, The Purple Pig, he looks to the Mediterranean, serving mostly Italian- and Greek-inflected dishes, like this whipped feta that was inspired by his Greek grandmother.

Recipe: Whipped Feta with Cucumbers
The taste of the Mediterranean shines through in this airy feta spread that's served with olive oil–marinated cucumbers.

FATHER-SON LEGACY

Preston Clark of El Paseo in California's Mill Valley learned to cook while working side by side with his late father, the great chef Patrick Clark, at NYC's Tavern on the Green. Here, some Clark trademarks:

Tools: "My father appeared on the original Japanese Iron Chef. He brought me my first supersharp knives from Japan."

Technique: "My dad taught me that the best way to fix a pan sauce gone awry is to add a little water."

Recipe: Crisp Crab Cakes with Chipotle Mayonnaise
"Like my father, I bind crab cakes with white fish. It's more flavorful than bread crumbs."

TEA-BLENDING MASTER

Recipe: Darjeeling Unlimited
Third-generation tea blender Emeric Harney of Harney & Sons created this tea cocktail with drinks technologist Dave Arnold.

Related:
Driven to Cook: Maria and Alexandra Guarnaschelli
Next-Gen California Wines

I hate to miss a good party. And it sounds like I missed a pretty spectacular one last week, as the Mandarin Oriental Paris celebrated its official launch. Among the people I would have liked to hang out with: Liam Neeson and Maggie Cheung, and Pierre Gagnaire, one of the world’s all-time great chefs). Michelin-two-starred chef Thierry Marx did the party food—of course he did, he does all the food for the hotel, most especially the impossible to get into Sur Mesure par Thierry Marx.

But don’t feel too sorry for me missing the party, because I did get to see the Mandarin Oriental Paris earlier this summer and was just fine. I loved the Swarovski-crystal-lined walls in the lobby, the Diptyque shampoos in the bath and the outrageous brioche in the breakfast bread basket and at the Cake Shop. And I found my new hero, hotel concierge Adrian Moore, who knows every single thing about the Paris food scene and has an excellent blog to prove it.

For more on the Mandarin Oriental Paris, and the fantastic hotel scene in Paris right now, check out the awesome Paris Travel Guide in the October issue of Food & Wine.

On Monday night NYC’s Hill Country Barbecue will host Restaurant Industry Night, the first in a quarterly series of events that recognizes different industries and related charities and celebrates them through food and music. Star chef Tom Colicchio will hit the stage with his guitar, no doubt taking inspiration from Season 9 of Top Chef, which he recently filmed in Texas. The event will raise money for the Careers Through Culinary Arts (C-CAP) scholarship program, which helps prepare high school students in underserved communities for restaurant careers.

If you can’t make it to the event, here are some amazing Texas-inspired barbecue recipes from chef Tim Love to try at home.

Sticky Barbecued Beef Ribs

Braised Pork Shanks

Grilled Texas Rib Eye

Charro Beans

Chiles Rellennos

More than 20 chefs from around the US flocked to Ogunquit, Maine, this past weekend for the East versus West festival, hosted by Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier of Arrows restaurant. It was a great excuse to try food from top regional restaurants, and with the walk-around tasting costing only $35, it was also an absolute steal. Besides marking your calendar for next year, here are five delicious bites I tried that you can look out for around the country:

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All the NYC-based Thai-food fanatics who are mad that Chicago has Grant Achatz going full force on his Tour of Thailand menu at Next, this is for you. Thai-food superstar chef David Thompson— who made a name for himself at Sydney’s awesome Sailors Thai and scored the first-ever Michelin starred for a Thai restaurant at London's Nahm—is coming to Manhattan. On October 5, he’ll cook at Betel, the groovy Southeast Asian restaurant in the West Village.
 
And Thompson is bringing gifts. Specifically, kanom jin noodles flown in from Thailand, which you never see fresh in the United States. As part of his three-course dinner, he’ll serve them three different ways, including with smoky grilled fish and shrimp curry.
 
The wine-paired dinner is $150 (including tip). For reservations, call 212-352-0460 or email guestchef@betelnyc.com. There’s also an open-bar after-party (yay!) starting at 11 p.m., where you might be able to ask Thompson your Thai cooking questions; those tickets are $40.

Here’s good news for everyone who wants to see M. Wells and their outrageous cooking back in Queens. On Sunday, September 25, from 1 to 3 pm, chef Hugue Dufour and his wife, Sarah Obraitis, will be in Long Island City cooking on the All-Clad Food Truck. What’s more, they’ll be serving their much-heralded sautéed veal brains (the New York Times's Sam Sifton called them a "must-order"). What’s more still: Those veal brains will be free.

The well-outfitted All-Clad Truck will be on the move before that: Ditch Plain’s Marc Murphy will set it up outside Sur La Table locations on Wednesday, September 21st. And next week, Elizabeth Karmel will take it to the Hill Country Barbecue neighborhood. It’s all to celebrate All-Clad’s 40thAnniversary. And the party goes on through October 1.

And here's details for September 25: M. Wells on the All-Clad Truck will be on Center Blvd. near 48th Ave., in Queens. You can get more info on Twitter or Facebook.