The Dinner Series is back! After a recent and uncanny streak of warm weather here in boston we threw our first dinner in a while, returning to one of our favorite venues–the beautiful Cambridge home of our friends Jim & Page. (We’ve been there before for Dinner 11: French Garden Dinner and Dinner 8.) Their beautifully decorated oak paneled dining room opens up onto their manicured garden patio, making it the perfect setting for a casual dinner party that anticipates the fairer weather of late spring and summer.

Left: Simon Pearce Madison carafe Right: Our summer setting of blue & white

Our table setting brought the blues and whites of summer to Jim & Page’s rustic farm table, with aqua Chilewich lattice placemats, navy Libeco Home Napoli Vintage napkins (used as placemats), a turquoise Sabre Natura salad serving set, Pillivuyt Sancerre plates, and sea blue iittala Kartio tumblers. The simple table was just the kind one sets for a summer barbecue, sparing frills like a tablecloth. After all, why cover up a beautiful farm table when you can complement it with a few daubs of Match Pewter and Simon Pearce glassware; tableware characterized by a robustness of their materials, as the table is by its aged hand-hewn boards.

Cheese, served on a Pillivuyt Quartet platter, with Sabre Natura cheese knives

Dinner started on Jim and Page’s patio, where a restaurant-style outdoor heater kept us warm as the evening cool arrived. While Jim got the charcoal going in his grill, we snacked on cheese from local cheese monger Formaggio Kitchen, including a Jasper Hill Moses Sleeper. Made in Vermont, the Moses is a young brie-like cheese with a buttery taste and texture.

When the grill was hot, on went the chicken kabobs, with cherry tomatoes and red, green, and yellows peppers. After a few minutes per side, they came off perfectly charred and we sat down at Jim & Page’s table, passing around platters of jasmine rice, Caprese salad, thick slices of an Iggy’s baguette, and pasta salad from the Formaggio Kitchen counter. Served over the fragrant long-grain jasmine rice, the kabobs were a wonderful taste of summer.

The perfectly charred chicken kabobs

Caprese salad, served on a Pillivuyt deep oval plate with a Jonathan's folding salad fork

Pasta salad, served in a Pillivuyt Sancerre serving bowl with a Sabre Natura salad serving set

A full serving

All these summer sensations carried into the dessert Page prepared; an olive oil cake (thanks Page, for sparing us that butter) topped with berries whose juices soaked into the light, fluffy cake. We served it with ice cream (from Toscanini’s, a Cambridge staple) on our go-to dessert plate, the iittala Kostihelmi dessert & salad plate. Its sparkling engraved patterns bring the appropriate amount of fancy to a dinner’s most fanciful course.

Page's berry olive oil cake, served on a Orrefors Intermezzo cake plate. We ate it off one of our favorites; the iittala Kostihelmi plate.

We drank from Simon Pearce Hampton stemware, which adds a fine, thin lip to the trademark Simon Pearce feel of robustness

The evening went late, as we moved from wine (Poderi Sanguineto Bianco Toscano) to dessert wine (Fillipi Calprea Passito del Veneto) (and I think there was a red in there somewhere). We talked about travel–specifically countries where they eat dog. To think there might have been another Dinner Series in some far-flung part of the world where they served dog instead of chicken! And we talked about garden design–specifically, how to organize design ideas from magazines. Jonathan advised we follow him on Pinterest and Jim broke out his iPad, on which he subscribes to digital magazines with Zinio. The new Libeco sailing tote also came up, which Page has her eye on at Didriks.

For more photos, visit Dinner 19′s Flickr set.

Most people get their raw oyster fix during happy hour. In Cambridge, some of the best spots are the Legal Sea Foods bar at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square or Rafiki Bistro, halfway between Harvard and Porter Square on Mass Ave. But, as we’ve been discovering recently, they’re a real treat at home too.

The tough shells of these mollusks can be intimidating, especially if you have to shuck a dozen or two for guests. But opening them only takes a kitchen towel, an oyster knife, and a little practice.

This video is a great primer on everything from checking for freshness to shucking.

We’ll pick up where the video leaves off and with our specialty. Serving. We picked up half a dozen from our local fishmonger, The Fishmonger in Huron Village, where we could be confident what we were buying was fresh. Obviously, six oysters can’t serve a party, but it does make a nice snack for 2-3 or small meal for one. Below are oysters on the half shell (served) two ways, both with our favorite accoutrement: cocktail sauce that’s heavy on the horseradish. You might find this in the back of your refrigerator, but if not, it’s actually pretty easy to make yourself.

Jars Ceramics Tima Aperitif Dishes

With Chilewich Basketweave placemats we created a black & white checkered mat to match the glaze of our Jars Ceramics Tima serving dishes. Filled with a bed of ice, the extra large Tima aperitif dish made a stylish platter for five medium-sized oysters. A matching small Tima dish served as a small boat for cocktail sauce. A wedge of lemon to be squeezed onto the oysters brought a little color into this geometric, black & white setting.

Oysters served in a Jars Ceramics Tima aperitif dish, pictured with a Sabre Natura spoon

A small Jars Ceramics Tima aperitif dish held cocktail sauce

The Pillivuyt Oyster Plate

The Pillivuyt oyster plate is a beautifully sculpted dish from the classic French porcelain maker Pillivuyt. Six oyster-shaped indentations hold oysters on the half shell without spilling the liquor–the briney juice inside an oyster that connoisseurs savor. Being a naturally varied and individualistic species, oysters don’t fit precisely into the impressions Pillivuyt provides. But unless you’re dealing with some monster oysters so large you might suspect the oyster beds they were harvested from from being too close to a nuclear power plant, they fit well enough. A Pillivuyt Plisse plate served as a charger. The center of the oyster plate has a small well, just big enough for a Pillivuyt sauce shell filled with cocktail sauce.

Oysters on the Half Shell, served on the Pillivuyt oyster plate

The Pillivuyt oyster plate fits a Pillivuyt sauce shell at its center

We used a Pillivuyt Plisse plate as a charger for the Pillivuyt oyster plate

Stone Hearth Executive Chef Michael Ehlenfeldt

We stopped into Stone Hearth’s Belmont restaurant (57 Leonard St.) to meet their Executive Chef Michael Ehlenfeldt and watch him prepare one of Stone Hearth’s most beautiful pizzas, the Farm Fresh. Garlic oil, cherry tomatoes, charred red & yellow peppers, Yukon gold potatoes, artichoke hearts, green olives, fresh mozzarella, arugula, red onion, and a slice of prosciutto all come together in what’s a perfect example of Stone Hearth’s attention to their quality, locally-sourced ingredients. Their take-out boxes are even printed with a map of their sources.

Stone Hearth's Farm Fresh Pizza

Stone Hearth's local sources

See more photos from our visit on our Flickr.

And because one Stone Hearth pizza just isn’t enough, the day after our visit, we ordered another one of my favorite house pizzas to plate ourselves. Topped with scallions and a generous helping of prosciutto, their Prosciutto & Pineapple pizza is a fantastic twist on a classic Hawaiian and the perfect combination of sweet and salty.

We put together an earthy tablesetting with heavy Libeco Home Napoli Vintage linen, Heath Coupe dinnerware, and Heath Rim dinnerware. Chilewich Rib Weave placemats gave the setting some texture and offset the browns of the Libeco linen and Heath Ceramics plates.

We carried the setting’s earthy aesthetic into the simple earthenware-like Heath Modern cups and the copper colored tile we used as a serving platter for the pizza.

Our earthy setting with Heath Coupe dinnerware, Libeco Napoli Vintage linen, and Chilewich Rib Weave placemats

We served the pizza on a tile to complement the Rim salad plate

Stone Hearth's Prosciutto & Pineapple pizza on a Heath Coupe dinner plate

For dessert, I didn’t have the will to resist ordering the Brownie Sundae–local gelato on a warm brownie and topped with hot fudge and candied nuts. Couples beware! If you’re splitting one of these, you might find yourselves fighting over the who gets the last spoonful with candied nuts. These things are so delicious, they inspired me to try making my own. Any kind of candying can be a messy job, but it’s just a matter of cooking the nuts in a saucepan with some simple syrup and then letting the sugary coating cool and harden.

Heath Modern cups picked up the earthy feel of the Libeco Napoli Vintage linen and Chilewich Rib Weave placemats gave the setting just enough contrast

Contributed by Bryce Lambert

One of the best foodie deals in town (yes, even better than restaurant week) are the cooking classes at Season to Taste Catering. Season to Taste uses the term “cooking class” loosely (something they’re upfront about), as these events are better described as multi-course sit-down dinners with instructional introductions there to allow diners to better engage with their food.

After being late to sign up for (they fill up quick!) both a duck confit and braising class, I finally made it to a recent gnocchi class. And by “class,” I mean I munched on crostinis and cauliflower soup while Season to Taste’s Robert Harris rolled out two kinds of gnocchi and then sat down to a four-course dinner with strangers. For just $35, I left with a firm understanding of how to make gnocchi, a gourmet food induced hangover, and a list of restaurants to check out, courtesy of my well-informed dinner companions.

Robert showing us his tricks

Robert serving dessert: Taza Chocolate Mousse, Almond-Maple Filo Crisps, Dried Cherry Compote, and Ginger Whip Cream

Making gnocchi dough

If you didn’t know, gnocchi isn’t that difficult or time-consuming to make at home. Unlike fresh pasta, it doesn’t require multiple passes through a specialized hand-cranked machine or KitchenAid attachment, and it doesn’t occupy your whole kitchen for an entire Sunday to dry. The ingredients are common and so is the equipment. And because it’s so simple, inexpensive, and delicious when served fresh, I think gnocchi is best served at home with a quick cream or ricotta based sauce rather than at a restaurant.

Rolling out the gnocchi dough

Cutting Parisian-style gnocchi from a pastry bag right into the pot

Robert's potato gnocchi with yellow foot mushrooms and tomato sauce

Robert's Parisian gnocchi with roasted butternut squash, blue cheese, and fried sage

Robert covered two kinds of gnocchi–your standard potato as well as a Parisian style dough based one. The latter used the classic French pastry dough pâte-à-choux, which is easily flavored for gnocchi with fresh herbs like chervil and chives. (Robert likes to add some dijon mustard and a generous helping of Fiddlehead tomme.)

It’s impossible to fully communicate in a blog post what one learns by spending half an hour in the kitchen with a guy who used to poach 2000 eggs at a time (yes, that’s three zeroes), but I hope you find this recipe useful.

Robert Harris’ Gnocchi

Ingredients

• 2 starchy potatoes, like russets
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup flour
• salt & pepper to taste

Directions

1. Poke potatoes with a fork and roast them at 350° for about 45 minutes.
2. Remove the (hot) potatoes from the oven, split them in half, and run the halves through a ricer, letting them pile up on your counter. If you don’t have a ricer, use your food mill. If you don’t have a food mill, send someone out to buy a ricer–everyone who eats your mashed potatoes afterwards will thank you. But, if you’re really in a bind, get out the box grater.
3. Round out your potato pile and make a well in its center. Crack an egg into the well and season all over with salt & pepper. (A little nutmeg works well here, if you’re so inclined.)
4. Dust the pile with the flour and mix everything together slowly with your hands (use your knuckles!), until it looks like dough.
5. Knead the dough until it’s supple–firm, yet with a little give. With a pastry scraper, divide it into six equal parts.
6. Take one part into your hands and roll until you have a potato-snake about 3/4″ in diameter.
7. Roll out the rest of the dough portions and lay them out onto your counter. With the pastry scraper, cut them into 3/4″ sections.
8. Use your thumb to make a depression on one end of each gnocco.
9. And with the tines of a fork, make a depression on the other end. (Some claim this helps gnocchi hold its sauce. At the least, it makes it look pretty.)
10. Toss the gnocchi lightly in flour and toss again, into a large pot of generously salted boiling water. (I’m hoping you already had the water on.)
11. Boil until the gnocchi float. This will only take 1-2 minutes, since the dough is fresh and made from pre-cooked potatoes.
12. Alternatively, you can flash freeze the uncooked gnocchi on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper and bag them when frozen for later.

Robert served his with yellow foot mushrooms and a simple tomato sauce. When I make mine, I’ll probably sauté some garlic, shallot, and pancetta, deglazing the pan with white wine, and finishing the sauce with cream and maybe a little spinach.

Upcoming classes include “Fresh Pasta Cooks Fasta!” and “Free Range Chicken Academy.” Visit sttcookinglessons.blogspot.com for more information.

There are few sounds in the culinary world more satisfying than the crack of caramelized sugar as you dig into a creme brulee. And there are few kitchen gadgets more exciting to use than the kitchen torch. So, we set out to make this dish that has a reputation for being something you order off prix fixe menus or while on vacation in Paris.

But, like most French bistro food, it’s actually incredibly easy to make at home (once you get the hang of the torch) from basic ingredients you probably always have on hand. What keeps most people from making this delicious restaurant-style dessert is their lack of the necessary equipment. Because while the ingredients are common, creme brulee’s signature wide shallow ramekins and the essential sugar-caramelizing torch are not.

Cracking into creme brulee, served in a Pillivuyt Patisserie ramekin

It’s for this reason that one often sees low-priced “creme brulee kits” for sale. These include a couple ramekins, a torch, and sometimes even a baking pan with a kind of canning-rack-like contraption to lift hot ramekins out of it. Don’t buy this, unless you’re only interested in a single use. The ramekins are cheap and the torches are worse, often leaky and underpowered (even compared to the same model that’s sold individually).

Our Equipment: A Rösle Kitchen Torch and Pillivuyt Patisserie Ramekin

Really, there’s no reason your creme brulee apparatus should go the route of your fondue pot and hand crank ice cream maker. So don’t buy it as the kind of novelty these kits make it out to be. A good kitchen torch is great for melting cheese, searing meat, and quickly roasting peppers. And you might not be into Sous-vide yet, but if you ever experiment with low-temperature cooking, a torch is an essential piece of gear.

Didriks carries the Rösle kitchen torch, a high end, compact torch that packs a punch…but unlike some high-powered kitchen torches, doesn’t kick out so much butane that it blows the sugar around in your creme brulee, making it difficult to caramelize properly. It’s comfortable in the hand and the flame is easy to adjust.

As for the ramekins, they’re useful too. The wide, shallow ramekins used for creme brulee are great for oven-to-table dishes like individually-sized quiches, baked eggs, and tarts and other desserts. Our creme brulee was cooked & served in a Pillivuyt Pillenium ramekin. Pillenium is Pillivuyt’s new-age porcelain compound that allows for strong, while thin-walled, dishes with high heat conductivity. The Pillenium ramekin is also quite a dainty dish that holds a small portion of creme brulee just to our liking beautifully inside its sculpted edges.

Caramelizing the sugar

Crème Brûlée

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy (or whipping) cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 egg yolks
• extra sugar for topping

Directions

1. Set oven at 300°
2. Combine cream and 1/4 cup sugar in a large saucepan and bring to a light simmer, whisking lightly…about 5 minutes over medium heat.
3. While the cream is cooking, beat the the egg yolks and whisk in the vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. (Use a bowl with a spout if you have one…it makes pouring the cream mixture into the ramekins much easier.)
4. Slowly pour the hot cream into the bowl with the eggs, whisking quickly as you go to keep the eggs from cooking. Continue to whisk until you have a light froth and pour the mixture into 4-6 ramekins.
5. Place ramekins in a baking pan (or pans, depending on how they fit) and fill the pan with very hot tap water, so that the ramekins are about halfway under water. Cover the pans with tinfoil, tearing two holes in the foil to let the steam vent.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 300°.
7. Remove from oven and, using an oven mitt, remove the ramekins from the baking pan so they don’t overcook while sitting in the hot water. The custard should be well set, about the consistency of pudding.
8. Chill ramekins in the fridge for at least 5 hours.
9. BEFORE SERVING, let the ramekins come up towards room temperature for about 20 minutes.
10. Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of sugar evenly over the top of the custard.
11. Bring a kitchen torch in close to the custard and, moving it in small circles, heat the sugar as evenly as you can. Once it starts to brown and bubble, pull the torch back and, still with a circular motion, continue to caramelize the sugar until it’s reached a medium-dark brown color.
12. Enjoy the delicious smell of caramelizing sugar.
13. The sugar will still be hot and soft, so give it about a minute to cool and harden before serving and cracking it with a spoon.

Bubbling sugar in a Pillivuyt Patisserie ramekin

The Sazerac. The classic New Orleans cocktail. Fortunately, you don’t have to go all the way to NOLA to find a well made one. The recently re-vamped restaurant at Harvard Square’s Sheraton Commander, Nubar, has made it their house specialty. Nubar’s GM Richard Mann and barman Don were kind enough to take us through their fine execution of this strong cocktail of bourbon, bitters, sugar, and absinthe.

Although the Sazerac’s origins are as muddled as the sugar cubes that go into it, the Sazerac goes all the way back to 19th Century New Orleans, where it was (and is) one of the original American cocktails. It’s traditionally made with rye, but Nubar mixes theirs with Corner Creek bourbon, which makes for a slightly sweeter and softer cocktail.

The Sazerac

If you’re new to the Sazerac, the absinthe probably caught your eye. No, a Sazerac won’t induce psychedelic hallucinations and have you seeing like Van Gogh or thinking like Rimbaud, because absinthe doesn’t do anything except give you a nice buzz. And in the case of the case of the Sazerac, the absinthe is only there to subtly flavor the whiskey. Proper preparations call for an absinthe rinse, where a small amount of absinthe is poured into an empty old fashioned glass, swirled around until the glass’s inside surface is coated, and then discarded.

The ingredients: Peychaud's Bitters, Lucid absinthe, and Corner Creek bourbon

Nubar's dining room

Absinthe was banned in the U.S. in 1912. And it wasn’t until 2007 that real absinthe started to (legally) appear stateside, when the French brand Lucid became the first to be approved by the feds. So barkeeps got used to using anise flavored absinthe substitutes like Herbisaint. Some still do, but Nubar stocks Lucid.

If you prefer screwdrivers and other cocktails where you “can’t even taste the liquor” to whiskey, the Sazerac isn’t for you. But, if you like your drinks strong and with long finishes that pass through your taste-buds into your whole body, warming you from the inside out, you’ll love Nubar’s Sazerac. Corner Creek bourbon is wonderfully fragrant and complex and pairs well with the Sazerac’s subtle lemon and absinthe flavors and light sweetness.

Don muddling the sugar and bitters

Our equipment: Rosle cocktail shaker, Rosle muddle, and a Schott Zwiesel Pure whiskey glass

The Sazerac

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Start with two glasses; a highball for mixing and an old fashioned for serving. Choose your old fashioned carefully. The Sazerac is best served in something with some shape to it, like the Schott Zwiesel Pure whiskey glass.
2. Fill the old fashioned glass with ice and leave it to chill.
3. Add a large sugar cube (or two small ones) and three dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters to the highball. Let the ingredients sit for a few beats (no need to rush a drink that’s best enjoyed slowly), so the sugar cubes soften. Then muddle until the sugar and bitters form a paste.
4. Add ice and about 2 1/4 oz of bourbon and shake in a cocktail shaker. Don “boxes” it, meaning he pours the liquid back and forth from the shaker to the glass. This technique helps to pull the flavors from the sugar and bitters into the bourbon.
5. Take the old fashioned glass you’ve been chilling, discard the ice, and pour in a small amount of absinthe. Swish it around to coat the glass and pour what’s left down the sink.
6. Strain the bourbon into the absinthe-coated serving glass and rub a freshly cut slice of lemon peel along the rim. At Nubar, Don puts the lemon peel into the glass. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but Nubar knows what they’re doing, and you can’t argue with the results.

Visit Nubar at the Sheraton Commander, 16 Garden St., Cambridge. And if you’re there, I highly encourage you to try another house specialty, the Taleggio Polenta; a slice of polenta topped with spinach and a lightly fried panko-crusted poached egg.

Pouring in the bourbon

Don boxing the cocktail before serving

Balloon Whisk

This balloon-shaped whisk is by far the most popular kitchen whisk and you likely have at least one floating around your kitchen. It’s the multi-purpose whisk, but it really excels at aerating liquids, making light & fluffy scrambled eggs or thick whipped cream. Its shape also makes it great at blending dry ingredients. Because of its popularity, balloon whisks are available in innumerable variations of size and the number of wires and how dense the wires are. You’ll benefit from keeping a few in your kitchen for differently sized bowls.

Flat Whisk

Designed to be used in and on a hot pan, a flat whisk is great for whisking together a quick roux or for deglazing. Its semi-flat shape makes it adept at working quickly over a flame and getting into the corners of a saucepan or skillet, much better than a balloon whisk can. You can find most whisks with either steel or silicone-coated wires. Most of the time this is your preference, but use a silicone flat whisk if working on non-stick cookware.

Twirl Whisk

Designed to be small enough to fit into a cup or mug, twirl whisks are used for adding froth to liquids. Twirl its springy bulb of an end around in some milk, and you’ll actually work up a nice froth quite quickly. Beyond frothing, twirl whisks don’t lend themselves to many tasks, so one isn’t entirely essential.

Vinaigrette Whisk

Commonly used to whisk together small amounts of liquid, a vinaigrette whisk looks like a circular, stretched-out spring at the bottom of a handle. It fits into small bowls neatly and makes quick work of salad dressings and sauces, where an average balloon whisk might be a tad more awkward or messy. The vinaigrette whisk is a fun one to have, but a small balloon whisk is just as good for working in small bowls.

There’s little that’s more essential in a chef’s repertoire than a well roasted chicken. It’s easy, classic, inexpensive, and feeds a family as well as it feeds diners in a hip bistro. And considering the small amount of effort that goes into it, a neatly trussed chicken presents exceedingly well. But, like turkey at Thanksgiving, it’s the sides to a chicken dinner that make it memorable. I have fond childhood memories of Sunday dinners with canned Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Stove Top stuffing, and those Pillsbury crescent rolls that come in a tube. Ah, how times have changed.

There’s a lot of ways to cook a chicken–un-stuffed, stuffed, vertically, horizontally–but roasting the chicken on top of a bed (or natural roasting rack) of vegetables is the only one that leaves you with a delicious side dish of roasted veggies soaked in the chicken’s juices. Where stuffing tends to dry out a bird, this makes sure those savory drippings don’t go to waste. I used a large Pillivuyt roasting pan from Didriks that’s perfectly sized for a few generous helpings of vegetables and a 4-5 lbs. bird. And, when it was time to do the dishes, this porcelain dish was several times easier to wash than several “non-stick” roasting pans I’ve owned.

A Trip to the Market

This meal really began with a trip to the Cambridge Winter Farmers’ Market, Cambridge’s greatest wintertime resource for the home cook. Every Saturday between 10am-2pm from January to April, farmers, cheesemongers, fishmongers, and other small vendors gather at the Cambridge Community Center. In these months when the more popular outdoor markets are long closed and grocers like Whole Foods have substantially extended the reach of their supply chains, it’s a true pleasure to know that fresh, local produce is so close by. Some of my current favorites include Apex Orchards‘ delicious apples, Valicenti Organico‘s fresh ravioli (try the Toasted Cauliflower with Golden Raisins & Grana Padano!), Wolf Meadow Farms‘ Italian Cheeses (try the fresh milky Primo Sale!), as well as hearty winter root vegetables and braising greens from farms like Red Fire Farm.

I highly suggest you go. Visit cambridgewinterfarmersmarket.com for more information and to see who will be there.

A quick stop at the market left me with celery root, parsnips, turnips, and an earthy rainbow of beautiful potatoes: red, blue, purple, and yellow. Along with an onion and carrot (because they caramelize so deliciously when roasted), I cubed the vegetables and layered them across the bottom of the Pillivuyt roaster. They’ll shrink quite a bit, so don’t be shy. A little salt and pepper (I use a great course pink Himalayan sea salt that Cambridge Naturals sells in bulk) and a drizzle of olive oil and the vegetable bed is ready for the chicken.

Root vegetables in a Pillivuyt roaster

To Truss or Not to Truss

It’s not entirely necessary to truss a chicken. Trussing helps slightly in making sure the bird cooks evenly and that the breast doesn’t dry out, but since chickens are already so uniform, it’s not as necessary as it is with, say, a de-boned leg of lamb. Trussing does make for a good looking bird, so I encourage you to do it. And being handy with kitchen twine and trussing a chicken or tying up a roast is probably the easiest way to impress others in the kitchen.

Crispy Skin & Notes on Olive Oil

What is necessary with a chicken is crispy skin. The easiest way to achieve it by adding some kind of fat; rubbing butter on the outside, spreading butter underneath the skin, or giving the chicken good coat of olive oil before it goes in the oven. I’ve tried all three over the years and found that olive oil gives the best results with the least effort.

But do use something with flavor. Olive oil is a subject unto itself, but the bottom line is that most of the stuff in large grocery stores is mislabeled, of poor quality, or overpriced. I’m lucky enough to live near Formaggio Kitchen, which sells three types of olive oil in bulk, filling wine bottles upon request from large aluminum casks. I’ve also heard good things about Boston Olive Oil Company on Newbury Street.

Cooking Time

Conventional wisdom, as well as the packaging of most chickens, says to roast it at 350° for 20-25 minutes per pound. I say kick it up it 400° and keep an eye on it. Higher heat will make the skin a little crispier and will cook it faster without really sacrificing moisture. About 20 minutes per pound is a reliable estimate, but cooking times are always inaccurate and I don’t know how many times you’ll open the door, so just keep a digital meat thermometer handy.

I use and recommend this one, manufactured by Cooper and sold by restaurant supply companies, but most will do and are bound to be better than analog ones or the finicky thermocouples they build into ovens these days. In regards to the safe consumption of poultry, the FDA likes 165°, but a few degrees less is preferable to some.

Let It Rest!

Letting a chicken rest when it comes out of the oven is crucial, no matter how hungry you are. Giving it about 10 minutes tented in tinfoil lets the bird soak back in some of its juices and makes it much easier to carve. It will come up a few degrees in temperature while it rests, so no need to worry if you removed it from the oven when its temperature was just shy of 165°.

Roast chicken in a Pillivuyt roaster

Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables

Ingredients

• 1 4-5 lbs. chicken
• Enough root vegetables (like onions, carrots, celery root, parsnips, turnips, and potatoes) to cover the bottom of your pan and make a rack for the chicken

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Cube vegetables and cut onion into wedges and distribute across the bottom of a roasting pan. They’ll shrink, so cut everything a little large. Season with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
• Wash chicken thoroughly, not forgetting to clean out its cavity and truss if desired.
• Set on top of vegetables, rub with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
• Roast for about 20 minutes per pound or until bird reaches 165°
• Remove bird from oven and let rest for about 10 minutes tented with foil.

We put together this printable menu template for readers who might wish to dress up their next dinner party. Menus look fantastic laid out on a well set table and allow your guests to anticipate what’s to come. They make a dinner all the more memorable, since everyone has something to take home with them. And when your guests are Facebooking and Tweeting the next day about your delicious gourmet four course dinner, they’ll know exactly what everything was. And we guarantee it will impress your mother-in law.

Just download one of the versions of the PDF menu template below and open it up in Acrobat Reader. You can fill in what’s for dinner and print it out on card stock. We’ve included some matching place cards as well.

DOWNLOAD the Menu Template
We recommend right clicking and selecting ‘save as.’

• Three course menu card template
• Three course menu card template with place cards
• Four course menu card template
• Four course menu card template with place cards
• Sheet of six place cards

You probably can tell how much we love cooking, dining, and dinnerware…but the Dinner Series has one more love. Local business. We love small businesses and entrepreneurs doing new and interesting things, providing personal service and unique products to customers, and getting involved in their communities. In short, doing all the great things big business and chain stores can’t. In the past, we’ve partnered with and posted about Season to Taste Catering, European Country Antiques, Cuisine en Locale, Formaggio Kitchen and American Provisions, and we’re always on the lookout for more.

The Happy Chocolatier, Paul McMahon

Ever the businessman (although he doesn’t let it undercut his desire to reach customers on a personal level and spend his days selling what he loves), Paul has assembled a store on a shoestring budget. Country kitchen oak cabinets house all sorts of confections and Fudge Cubze, already specially packaged for Valentine’s Day. Baskets, bowls, and decorations are sourced from, well, wherever he can find them; from baskets from Wal-Mart to a leftover vase that once held a bouquet he received at his opening in October. Ever see giant Christmas presents in shop windows around the holidays? Well, Paul had giant Fudge Cubze this year and now they’re re-purposed as store decorations. They still leave local children wondering if they’re real.

The real center of activity is the back counter. Paul doesn’t do much chocolate making on the premises. But what he does do he does out in the open, in view of any customers who wish to press their face up against the Plexiglas window in front of the counter. Customer watch as employees wrap Fudge Cubze in foil, melt down chocolate in a small tempering unit (kind of like a large crock pot with very precise temperature control), and ladle chocolate into molds–I had a heart. Shift your gaze to the left from this position, and there’s a case of fine chocolates to feast your eyes upon. We sampled some velvety liqueur flavored truffles. Note well that this is where you go to order a Fudge Cubze ice cream parfait.

Molten chocolate becomes hearts

Liqueur flavored truffles

Fudge Cubze come in a variety of boxes, but they’re always wrapped in foil whose color corresponds to the flavor. Tucked inside each cube is a brief adage on happiness; “happiness is a path you can choose on your journey in life,” “Happiness is a direction, not a place,” “Happiness is not a reward, it is a way of being.” Many of these were contributed by kids, who as Paul remarked, seem to have uncanny perspectives on happiness. Speaking with Paul, it’s impossible not to notice how much he cares about his customer’s experience and how well he knows some of them. He could’ve gone on all afternoon with anecdotes about customers and community involvement, and he’s only been open since October. The Acton Patch even syndicates his blog. But, if there’s one thing you really need to know, it’s that Paul makes sure everyone who walks in his doors get a sample of his signature confection.

Free samples for all!

There are eight flavors of Fudge Cubze; Plain, Peanut Butter, Cranberry Walnut, Chocolate Walnut, Cappuccino, Maple, Chocolate Mint, Cookies & Cream. I had to resist trying all of them, but I did treat myself to a pretty thorough tasting and am looking forward to the fall, when Paul brings back his seasonal pumpkin flavored fudge.

Fudge Cubze, color coded by flavor

Cappuccino: The coffee flavor is weak and, as a coffee lover who’s been know to munch on chocolate-covered coffee beans, I would’ve liked a little more coffee flavor than the every-so-slight bitterness of this confection’s milky chocolate center.

Maple: One of New England’s signature flavors runs strong in the white chocolate of this cube. The heavy maple flavor takes a second or two arrive, but when it does, it does, pairing fantastically with the dark chocolate shell and rich white chocolate center.

Cookies & Cream: Not one of my favorites. The creamy white chocolate center of this cube has the slight taste and texture of cookies that melds well with the dark chocolate exterior. Recommended for white chocolate junkies and fans of creamy confections.