Verinne of Grand-Marnier Soaked Strawberries with Crème Fraîche Ice Cream

This dessert is not only delicious, it is ideal for dinner parties because it can be made in advance & assembled easily right before serving. I made very little changes to the original recipe from Epicurious though I simplified some of the steps.

To make the ice cream:
2/3 cup sugar
6 large egg yolks
2 8oz containers of Vermont Butter and Cheese crème faîche
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, well shaken
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
Pinch of salt

To make the ice cream, whisk sugar and egg yolks together in a bowl. In a large saucepan, combine crème fraîche, buttermilk, lemon juice, lemon peel, and salt. Stir constantly over medium heat just until hot, about 4 minutes. Make sure the mixture does not boil! Gradually whisk crème fraîche mixture into the yolk-sugar mixture. Return mixture to same saucepan. Stir constantly over medium heat just until instant-read thermometer inserted into the custard registers 170 degrees and custard thickens very slightly, about 4-6 minutes (again, do not boil!). Pour custard through a strainer set over a large bowl. Set bowl with custard in another bowl filled with ice water and whisk occasionally to cool. Transfer the custard to your ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. The ice cream can be made up to 3 days ahead and kept frozen.

For the berries:
4 cups quartered hulled fresh strawberries (about 20 ounces)
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange peel

Toss quartered berries, orange juice, powdered sugar, Grand Marnier, and orange peel in medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

A verrine is a confection, sweet or savory, made by artfully layering the components of a dish in a small glass. Verrine itself refers to the glass that it used in the dish and their use has soared in France where hundreds of verrine cookbooks have been published in recent years. To assemble this particular verrine, scoop the berries into a small glass and top with a small scoop of ice cream. Garnish each with orange peel and serve.

It's (already) the most wonderful time of the year!

Consider it an early Christmas gift from Capital Restaurant Concepts! From December 1st to 24th, J.Paul's, Paolo's Ristorante, Old Glory's Bar-B-Que, The Third Edition, Georgia Brown's and Neyla's will help us get into the Holiday spirit with a special $24 three-course Holiday menu (and that includes a glass of house wine too!) The 24 Days of Dining three-course menu is available from 5pm-8pm and details for each individual restaurant can be found on their website. Tasty seasonal treats include Eggnog Cheese Cake from The Third Edition, Butternutt Squash Bisque at Old Glory or Orange and Cardomam Creme Brulee (miam!) at Neyla's.

Hope you weren't thinking of going on a crash diet between Thanksgiving and Christmas because Capital Restaurant Concepts's 24 Days of Dining is like a grown-up foodie advent calendar you don't want to miss out on!

Allez Les Bleus et Allez le Beaujolais!

Today is a big day in France! After a 1-0 win at Croke Park Saturday, Les Bleus take on Ireland at the Stade de France tonight for part deux of a face-off that will determine which of the two countries gets to go to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In the first leg of the qualifying play-off, there was no luck for the Irish at all and tonight is make or break for Trapattoni's men. Domenech's team on the other hand, only needs a nil all draw to qualify for the World Cup, a score les bleus have specialized in recently. All of France is abuzz with the match and football is drowning out the other big event taking place tonight: the official release of Beaujolais Nouveau!

Celebrating l'arrivée du Beaujolais Nouveau has lost some its popularity in France though I suspect it might pick-up tonight. See, by law, Beaujolais Nouveau cannot be sold until the third Thursday in November, which happens to be tonight at midnight... potentially a few minutes after the football match ends. I can really only forsee 2 case scenarios here: 1) Les Bleus lose, the French need to drown out their defeat with massive amounts of wine or 2) Les Bleus win and the French need to celebrate their victory with massive amounts of wins. In either scenarios, Beaujolais wins!


In Washington D.C., it's certainly easier to celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau than to catch the match! The usual suspects will be ringing in the new wine year starting at midnight tonight and throughout the weekend. 1905 & Bistro du Coin are opening up the festivies tonight with a countdown and free flowing gamay. If staying up 'til 3 am on a weekday, dancing on the zinc bar and cheeky puns about getting Beajoulaid aren't your thing, Mon Ami Gabi, La Maison Française at the French Embassy and Café du Parc are offering more low-key (or grown up?) celebrations on Thursday evening. Rounding up the Beaujolais Nouveau parties is the annual wine and cheese at l'Alliance Française where my friend DJ Herve of Planete Chic will be spinning his usual mix of electro-French tunes while the francophile crowd sips on Beaujolais. Allez Les Bleus et allez le beaujolais!

Streetcar Desired in DC

With Cate Blanchett in town for the Kennedy Center's production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the launch by the DDOT of a series of town hall meetings to explain their plans for the return of tramways to D.C., streetcars are a hot topic in the district!

Streetcars used to be THE way to get around town, first drawn by horses, then electrified. Then automobiles and buses came around and the streetcar system was dismantled in the early 1960s, with the last streetcar running on January 28, 1962. There isn't much left of these streetcars. One can be seen in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and some tracks are still visible on the cobblestone streets of Georgetown. A few stations and terminals have also survived. The Colorado Avenue Terminal on 14th Street NW, for example, is still in use as a Metrobus stop.

Proposed Streetcar System Map courtesy of the DDOT

Well, it seems the streetcar is poised to make a come-back in D.C., and not just for two weeks at the Kennedy Center. Streetcars have made successful comebacks in cities such as San Francisco... or my hometown of Paris. In the city of lights, the tramway offered an ecologically friendly answer to rising energy costs and car-traffic crisis but focused more on connecting suburbs which had previously no direct connection to one another.

In D.C., the proposed streetcar lines also aim to connect previously under-connected neighbourhood but is focusing on DC proper. The first segment of network, the 1.5-mile Anacostia streetcar line, had a ceremonial groundbreaking while Anthony A. Williams was still mayor but actual construction just began and the line should be in service by late 2012. At the same time, plans are moving ahead for the Benning Road and H Street line and crews are currently laying down the tracks at the same time as they working on the Great Streets Initiative.

Kitchen-in-chief

Is it me or is the White House Kitchen garden all over the news these days? First, the white house kitchen garden was featured this week on NBC's popular reality show The Biggest Loser. The overweight contestants traveled to D.C. in mid-July and harvested vegetables with the help of assistant White House Chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass. They then joined White House Chef Cristeta Comerford in the White House kitchen to made a big salad using the veggies they had just picked and fresh honey from the White House beehives.

Photo from NBC - for more pictures, go to www.nbc.com

The New York Times cooked up two great articles on the first honey (A Bountiful Buzz) and the newest White House Chef Sam Krass (A White House Chef who Wears Two Hats). As the blog Obama Foodorama reflects on the one-year anniversary of the president's election (and the blog's creation) Michelle Obama's nutrition and health agenda has kept the White House Garden kitchen (and its easy on the eyes ambassador Sam Kass) a constant presence in the media.

Picture taken by Jim Lo Scalzo for The New York Times

Now comes news that the Food Network's Iron Chef was in town this week to film a special episode of the televised cook-off. Michelle Obama will not only lend vegetables from her garden to be the episode's "special ingredient," she is also sending her Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford to Kitchen Stadium. She will pair up with Bobby Flay (who famously grilled with the president on the White House lawn for father's day) to compete against celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali to see whose cuisine reigns supreme. The episode will air on January 3rd, 2010. Lindsey Graham once joked on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama has appeared everywhere except the Food Network. Well, we all know that is no longer true but it seems that the White House kitchen is trying to get its fifteen minutes of fame as well. I wonder in how many other shows can creatively feature the Kitchen-in-Chief... HGTV's spice up my kitchen perharps?