In this era of salty sweets, I’ve always thought Frito Pie was a dessert. I later found out that the delightfully trashy Southern specialty is more of a chili-cheese casserole with Fritos on the bottom. But I couldn’t get away from the idea of making a Frito crust for a sweet filling, and the Super Bowl this weekend was the perfect excuse to test it out. Using F&W’s Melissa Rubel Jacobson’s fantastic Chocolate Cream Pie recipe as a guide, I subbed in Fritos for the cookies in the crust. Sweet/salty nirvana? Almost. My Frito crumbs, crushed by a wine bottle since I don’t own a food processor, were a bit too big and became a little soggy in the fridge. As soon as my kitchen is stocked with a food processor, I'm trying this pie again.

It's the middle of winter and I don't feel like cooking—not even a warming soup or stew. My savior is the freezer. When I decided to make potpie last November with leftover Thanksgiving turkey, I doubled the recipe and prepared a second pie to store in the coffin freezer in my basement. Back in the fall, my husband also made half a dozen batches of pesto (just the basil, garlic and olive oil—no cheese or nuts, which we add when we're ready to use it) to freeze in little plastic containers like the ones pictured above. So this weekend, out came the pie for one dinner and a container of pesto—to toss with pasta, cubes of mozzarella and halved grape tomatoes—for another.

Here are some recipes that are made for freezing. And if you don't feel like making them just now, I don't blame you.

Chicken Potpies (You can make a big pie instead of individual ramekins and top with any pie crust recipe, like this one.)
Basil Pesto
Chicken Chilaquiles

I remember sitting down with bread genius Jim Lahey the very first week his cult NYC pizza place, Co., opened, and having him tell me that he dreamed of projecting movies on the big, blank back wall of the restaurant. The fantasy finally becomes a reality tonight. Lahey and the Co. team kick off the first of what will be monthly movie screenings of pie-inspired flicks. Tonight’s inaugural show will be Les Blank’s Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, and Lahey is making a special garlicky pie to serve at the screening. The movie will be played silently during the start of dinner service and then will be shown with sound at 9:30 p.m.
 

We're just days away from the NBC food-truck event on Monday, February 8—a launch for both NBC's soon-to-launch food website, Feast, and the South Beach Wine & Food Festival (SOBE). And it features not one chef (like last year, when the spotlight was on David Chang) but four superstars, including Michael White, Paul Liebrandt, Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse. They'll serve food from trucks in four different locations all around New York City. Of course, we can't give those locations (NBC has a contest in place to score "golden tickets") but word is that they'll range from midtown to Soho with two spots in between. All starting at 10 am.

Since I always want more late night food choices, I was happy to read Grub Street's report last week that Otto Enoteca in Manhattan was launching a new late-night menu. Served from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., it’s a good deal: For $33 you get a bottle of wine (from a choice of some 15 red, white, sparkling and rosé bottles) plus salumi, house-pickled vegetables and cheese. Otto's wine director Dan Amatuzzi especially likes the 2008 Verdicchio di Matelica Fontezoppa, a white from Italy's le Marche region; for a red, he recommends the 2007 Primitivo Botromagno from Puglia (he says the licorice and spice are good for pickled vegetables and cut through the rich cheese). Mario Batali, Otto's chef/owner, goes in a different direction. He loves the NV Prosecco di Veneto Flor for what he calls "the early part of the late evening," (i.e., midnight).  "With some cheese and salumi, it gives me a springboard into action and fun," he says. You’ll be hearing more from Batali and Amatuzzi about some crazy wine pairings in F&W’s April wine issue; it's just about the same time that Batali's new book, Molto Gusto: Easy Italian Cooking comes out.

Although I'm totally looking ahead to the Oscars, I'm still thinking about the Grammys. Here's where I wish I was, besides front row for the awards: At the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Not just because the place was filled with the people who won awards (and who can’t be named here) but also because its restaurant/bar, Blvd, honored some Grammy nominees with an adorable list of drinks. The Best Drink nominees included:

*“Halo” with a Twist: Champagne, St.-Germain elderflower liqueur, lemon twist
*Lady’s Poker Face (After Tequila): tequila, cassis, lemon juice and sugar
*Fearless n’ Swift: vodka, Navan (vanilla-infused Cognac), caramel sauce, black lava salt

The hotel announced that the drink winners were a tie: Halo and Lady's Poker Face. Those drinks are now off the menu now that the Grammys are over. But starting next week, look for Blvd's special Oscar drinks, perhaps the Precious Pisco Sour or a Sandra Bullock Sazerac. (And if you want to work on your own versions of those drinks, F&W has some key recipes for pisco sours and Sazaracs, too.)

 

Amid the wooden chalets, ski and snowboard shops and fabulous artisanal food stores on the main street of St. Anton am Arlberg is a window showcasing glowing neon liquids in all sizes of bottles. What looks like a futuristic mad scientist's laboratory is actually a shop, called the Drinks Company. With roots in one of the oldest Tyrolean herbal distilleries, it works with herb farmers and specialized mountain farmers who supply the ingredients for excellent herbal elixirs, brandies, schnapps and grappas. Each beverage is stored in a gorgeous, beaker-like glass vessels, and customers can taste samples of Alpine Herbs Root Spirit, Farmer Fruit Brandy and even pre-made caipirinhas. Once you find your favorite, you pick a bottle to fill with your drink of choice and take it to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not really a skier but I always love the après party—which, as my coworker Jen Murphy mentioned in her envy-inducing posts about a recent trip to Austria, is more popular in Europe than in the U.S. David Perkins, founder of the High West Distillery in Park City, Utah, is trying to change that. On Saturdays, in the cozy new saloon next to his copper stills, he’s serving hot late-afternoon cocktails to skiers fresh off the slopes while a local bluegrass band plays. I popped into High West while I was out in Utah last month and loved the Rock n’ Rye. Made with freshly muddled oranges and lemons, hot water and High West’s Rendezvous Rye, it’s essentially a riff on a hot toddy with a cute little addition: a rock-candy stick so drinkers can sweeten it to taste. After finishing the drink, I couldn’t decide what surprised me more: that I got this lovely, warming buzz hassle-free in Utah (read more about that here) or that I briefly considered taking up skiing.

For anyone looking for a sweet worth mail-ordering for Valentine’s Day, or any day, B.Hall Baker’s new mini whoopie pies are now available online. Washington, DC-based Beryl Hall, a former Hill staffer, keeps the calories low by keeping the pies small (she bakes them in madeleine molds). She gives her red velvet pies a rich tang (and a vibrant red color) with raspberry juice, raspberry extract and powdered raspberries from France. “Whoopie pies are a Yankee thing, but I’m trying to make them Southern,” the San Antonio native says, so this spring she’ll release coconut-cake and bananas Foster versions.

After six epic days in the Austrian Alps, I must admit that the highlight involved a sled, not a snowboard. In St. Anton am Arlberg, children and adults alike partake in rodeling (what we know as sledding in the States). One brilliant restaurateur (apparently with no fears of liability) decided to set a restaurant called the Rodel Alm mid-mountain. Adventurous diners take their toboggans up the gondola, sled down the steep, barely lit hill and stop for dinner at this supercozy Tyrolean restaurant with live Tyrolean music and enormous portions of pig’s knuckle (schweinshaxe) with honey-infused sauerkraut, spinach spaetzle and kaiserschmarren (chopped up pancakes topped with warm apples and powdered sugar—a favorite of Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn). Of course dinner is accompanied by fantastic wines and a shot or two of schnapps (we opted for hazelnut) to keep rodelers warm on the 2.7-mile ride back down the mountain. At the bottom, a little hut with a bonfire outside awaits. Locals cheer on the rodelers, passing out celebratory glühwein (mulled wine) and beers. They then dare you to ride a tiny, circular tray down a nearby hill to see who can get the most air off of a jump. Our friend Stefan became a local legend that night, setting a new tray-sledding record.