It's the NY Times Food Section...

[lsanderson]

Maine Is Busy Praising the Potatoes
By JULIA MOSKIN
Portland, Me.

WHEN Aroostook County crowned its first Potato Blossom Queen, in 1937, the county seat, Houlton, was one of the 10 richest towns in New England. The county's famed potatoes had been nourishing the nation for 130 years.

But that was before the great plains of Idaho had become virtual French fry factories, and before irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers made it possible to grow potatoes even in the warm, sandy soil of Florida.

Now, said Jim Gerritsen, a farmer in Bridgewater, Me., "our biggest export is our children; potatoes are second." Aroostook is the largest county east of the Mississippi River; according to the 2000 census, it is one of the emptiest, with only 11 people per square mile.

But a high proportion of those people are farmers who are convinced of the superiority of the Maine potato, and are fiercely dedicated to preserving it, along with their small family farms. "Now we just have to convince the rest of the world, one mouth at a time," Mr. Gerritsen said.

This month, Hugo's, one of several restaurants that have transformed Portland into a cradle of artisanal bread and wood-roasted apple tarts, did its part with its fifth annual potato dinner.

Forty guests paid $120 each for a nine-course ballet that included Maine-grown potatoes in every course. The potatoes were boiled, whipped, crumb-coated, poached in butter, shaved and even coated in chocolate.

The Decisions Begin Before You Peel
By JULIA MOSKIN

TERROIR is just as important for potatoes as it is for grapes," said Jim Cook, a Maine potato farmer who believes that flavor is determined by soil, rainfall, temperature and other conditions specific to where the tuber is grown. "In the spring, when the northern potatoes run out and the whole country switches to California long whites, you can taste the difference."

Recipe: Potato 'Risotto' With Mushroom and Rosemary Recipe: Roasted Potato Soup With Sour Cream and Bacon

Winter Blanket for a Chicken
By MARK BITTMAN

ROAST a good chicken with decent technique and the results will always exceed the level of effort. But there are other options for cooking a whole chicken, and a week in which most of us have had our fill of roasted birds seems a good time to explore one of them.

Recipe: Browned and Braised Chicken With Root Vegetables

Two Unknowns From the Rhone Go West
By ERIC ASIMOV

YOU won't find many people who know marsanne from roussanne. Most people don't know either one. Suggest a bottle and the predictable response is complete bafflement. Offer a clue - that they are leading white grapes of the northern Rhone Valley - and the response might be a question: "What about viognier?"

Well, what about viognier? Back in the early 1970's there were only about 35 acres of viognier planted in Condrieu and Château-Grillet, the grape's home territory in the northern Rhone, and that was about it - not just in France but in the entire world. Then, some American and Australian fans of these obscure wines got some vines and started planting, and by the mid-90's the worldwide viognier renaissance was booming.

But in the northern Rhone, viognier is planted only in those two appellations, except for a tiny amount that is blended with syrah to make Côte-Rotie. The great but rarely seen white wine of Hermitage, unusually rich, with an almost oily texture, capable of aging for decades, is a blend of marsanne and roussanne. The other whites of the northern Rhone - Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph, Saint-Péray - are also blends of marsanne and roussanne.

A Laid-Back Partner Suited to a Varied Field
Recipe: Roquefort and Leek Tart

No-Roll Crusts Leave Little Room for Disappointment
By NIGELLA LAWSON

At this time of year, even reluctant cooks can find comfort in the kitchen.

When it is cold and blowy outside, the temptation to stay in, stay warm and play house is easy to give in to. And even the smallest amount of baking can bring its own cheer. It is perfect cold-weather cooking: it warms the soul as well as the body.

Those who are not regular and accomplished bakers need not take a chill to the idea: none of the recipes here are complicated.

I know the idea of pie crust can sound frightening, so it is good to start with crusts that do not need to be rolled out. They can be fashioned simply by using the two hands you were born with.

Recipe: Pear and Apple Crumble Recipe: Cinnamon Squares

Holiday Ribbons of Sweet and Sour
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Holiday Ribbons of Sweet and Sour

Candied grapefruit peel, which holiday cooks can use to enhance a citrus semifreddo or a soufflé, is virtually impossible to find: it is not in the repertory of commercial manfacturers.

But now shoppers can buy the peel that Scott Bieber, the chef at Taste, Eli Zabar's restaurant on the Upper East Side, makes at the restaurant, where he serves it with petits fours.

The wide bittersweet ribbons of pink and gold grapefruit peel, glistening with sugar, are sold at Eli's Manhattan and the Vinegar Factory, $16 for a four-ounce box, or listed under "snacks" at www.elizabar.com. The price is justified, as the process requires several stages of boiling and then drying the strips of peel.

A Life in the Culinary Front Lines
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
MANHATTAN, Kan.

CLEMENTINE PADDLEFORD was the Nellie Bly of culinary journalism, a go-anywhere, taste-anything, ask-everything kind of reporter who traveled more than 50,000 miles a year in search of stories in a day when very few food editors strayed far from their desks.

She went to sea on the submarine Skipjack to see what sailors ate, rode the Katy railroad in the Midwest to see what its passengers were served and flew to London to attend a luncheon given at the Guildhall to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. But mainly, as her recently opened archives show, she poked into home and restaurant kitchens in almost every corner of the United States, building up a picture of American regional cooking in the 1950's.

At a time when few people in Philadelphia knew what enchiladas were and few in Chicago knew what cioppino was, Ms. Paddleford described them both in loving detail, along with New Orleans-style red beans and rice, Lindy's cheesecake and Hungarian-American stuffed cabbage from Cleveland. Sampling New England clam chowder on Cape Cod, she deemed it "a brew of solid, honest comfort ... a chowder to equal that set forth to Ishmael and Queequeg by the hearty Mrs. Hussey of 'Moby-Dick.' "

And, for those you cannot think of a perfect present (and cost is no object) ...

A Star Chef at Your (Expensive) Stove
By ELIZABETH MAKER

ONE evening in early October, Daniel Boulud and a small staff of sous-chefs and servers dressed in formal white restaurant attire stepped off an elevator and into the spacious TriBeCa apartment of Michel Wallerstein and Gary Garrison. They rolled in crates of peekytoe crab, Colorado lamb, Maine halibut and tuna tartare, and enough fixings for a five-course feast to help the couple celebrate their 10th anniversary with a group of their friends.

Mr. Boulud worked at the couple's six-burner professional range across from the microwave as guests and the family dog mingled. It was the ultimate open kitchen experience.

"This is obviously not something I can do every day," said Mr. Boulud, the chef at the restaurant Daniel. "But lately there is such a strong demand for it, I have to say yes sometimes."

Mr. Boulud said he cooked at a dozen home parties this year, in Colorado, San Francisco, the Caribbean and Santiago, Chile. The demand for them is so strong that he has started a catering company, Feast & Fêtes. And while the company's prices start at around $100 a person, a dinner by Mr. Boulud can command upward of $2,000 a person and travel expenses.

Mr. Boulud is not the only star chef besieged by requests to cook in private homes. High-end catering has always been an option for those who can afford it, and some kitchens are designed with hired help in mind. As the kitchens of the wealthy become bigger and better equipped, the chef-coming-to-you treat while family, friends and pets watch is the rage.

Comments

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Heck with the potatoes. Bittman appears to making chicken quite bad for you. That looks delicious. Cream and Butter? Double the fun!

Speaking of Maine Potatoes...

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Did you know Wood Prairie Farm has a Potato of the Month Club?

The notion just hadn't occurred to me before seeing the Wood Prairie Farm catalog at Mark and Priscilla's last weekend. That of course sent me a-Googling for other weird item-of-the-month clubs. There are rather a lot of them...

Film at 11, or whenever it is I get 'round to writing it up.