Kitchen Chick

Blessings for the New Year

Yours truly, Kitchen Chick, being blessed by an elephant. Pondicherry, India

I wish you all peace and well being for the new year.

2009 was a tough year for me for a variety of reasons (and for one in particular), but we ended it on a high note. For the first half of December, we spent an amazing two weeks in India, visiting Chennai (and surrounding areas), Hyderabad, and Mumbai. Fourteen days of sunny 85 F days was just glorious! We returned in time to enjoy a relaxing Christmas weekend with Joe's parents, complete with Kurt Boyd's pastries from The Croissant Shop, and now we are looking forward to kicking off 2010.

I still have a lot of personal business to attend to, but I hope to find to time to write up highlights from our trip to India, including the South Indian cooking classes I took in Chennai. In the meantime, hop over to eCurrent and check out our January restaurant review of Red Pepper Deli. We'll have the photo tour to go with the review up in a few days.

 

Steve Rosoff's France Ici

Antique rolling pins from the Languedoc, $68 each

I first met Steve Rosoff a couple years ago when he and Francis Glorie taught a French-language cooking class at the late lamented Everyday Cook. He's a great teacher and cook, he's about as obsessed with France as it's possible to be without moving there permanently, and he really knows his stuff. So when I found out that he'd started an online store selling French culinary items, I wasn't surprised — but I was very intrigued.

If you're into France, or even just cooking, you need to check out France Ici. I can't really do it justice in a summary, because he's selling a lot of neat stuff that would make excellent Christmas gifts (no, he didn't pay me to say that). He's got everything from antique cutting boards and absinthe accessories to modern tableware and Opinel knives. Here are a couple more examples:

Terrines for paté, $62 large, $58 medium

Vacuum Coffeepots, $118 (perhaps invented by Antoine Lavoisier); if you're really serious you can pair one with an antique Peugeot coffee grinder, $650

And he's also partnering with French wine producer Le Dû to offer a selection of wines at a discount.  Check it out!

Amadeus: review in December Current, photo essay here

Pierogi Appetizer at Amadeus: you can't tell from the outside, but it's an assortment of pork, mushroom, cheese, and sauerkraut (obviously garnished with sour cream)

I hope all our eCurrent readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving. After a break in November, we're back with a review of Amadeus Restaurant in December's eCurrent magazine and our accompanying photo essay here. Enjoy the photos!

The interior of Amadeus, looking toward the front door.

Bartek's Breakfast: herbed (and very tasty) scrambled eggs, accompanied by a massive slice of smoked salmon over two potato pancakes.

Polish Breakfast, known to Polish speakers as Jajecznica: a mound of those same scrambled eggs, covered with slices of Amadeus's custom-made kielbasa and accompanied by two potato pancakes.

More Photos behind the cut...