Table of contents for February 2019 in Food & Wine

SPIEGELAU TULIP CLASSICS During the winter months I always lean toward golden Belgian ales, English-style brown ales, and stouts—warming beers even when served cold! I find that these graceful, rounded beer glasses from Spiegelau are perfect for rich beers like these. ($38/4, amazon.com) CRAFTHOUSE BY FORTESSA DOUBLE OLD-FASHIONED GLASSES Double old-fashioned glasses work equally well for whiskey served neat and for mixed drinks like old-fashioneds (crucial as far as I’m concerned), mint juleps, or Negronis. These look great and are break-resistant, too. ($60/4, williams-sonoma.com) LEOPOLD TASTING COUPE Traditionally, a martini (or a Manhattan, my go-to) is served in a cocktail glass. But more and more top bartenders are switching to coupes, both for their retro allure and because they don’t slosh over as easily. They’re ideal for any…

KAREN WASHINGTON GETS HER HANDS IN THE DIRT more than most born-and-bred New Yorkers. She has spent the past three decades working in urban gardens and teaching others to do the same in order to create access to fresh food. She is the cofounder of Black Urban Growers, was named one of the 100 most influential African-Americans in the country by Ebony, and was the recipient of a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. We spoke the morning after the block party celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Garden of Happiness, the community garden she helped start in the vacant lot across from her home. JT: You were a physical therapist before you were a community gardener. How did you begin to amplify your therapy work with community gardening? KW:…

JUST LIKE A PERFECT AUGUST TOMATO, freshly milled flour can bring so much more flavor and texture than a store-bought, out-of-season sack of all-purpose. With a simple countertop electric mill, making fresh flour couldn’t be easier. Chef Cassidee Dabney of The Barn at Blackberry Farm keeps one in her kitchen and freshly grinds exactly what she needs for each recipe, capturing the sweetness of corn bound for grits or madeleines (see recipe at right) or the floral aroma of jasmine rice used for gluten-free bread. The key is milling the grains just before cooking, so get your water boiling or prep your baking ingredients before running grains through the mill. “Capture that moment immediately after you grind,” Dabney urges; its essence will “appear in whatever you’re making.” MILLING AT…

ANYONE WHO COOKS knows that some days allow for ambition—the Saturdays when you haul out The French Laundry Cookbook and decide that 42 different steps are not too many to make five-spice roasted lobster with port-poached figs—and some days don’t. You’re home from work; you’ve got 30 minutes; dinner has to be straightforward, easy, and delicious. So with wine. Billionaires may glug down $500 bottles of grand cru Burgundy while watching the latest episode of Modern Family, but on post-work weeknights, most of us want wine that doesn’t require much thought (or investment). You want a wine you can absentmindedly sip while flipping a burger, one where you didn’t pay so much that you have to give it a lot of thought—but also one that tastes great and that…

WINEMAKER NOAH DORRANCE has one decree when he builds a tasting room: It should feel as comfortable as his own home. “You’ll never see a bar or faux Tuscan decor,” he says adamantly. For his first winery, Banshee, his wife Kelly codesigned a space in downtown Healdsburg, California, furnished with a distressed leather couch, mid-century modern swivel chairs, and a record player and vinyl collection. “I hoped the absence of a tasting bar would make the experience feel less transactional and more social,” says Noah. The low-key room did exactly that. Friends lounged for hours, sharing bottles of Banshee’s Sonoma Coast Pinots and Mordecai blend. That laid-back vibe struck a nerve, and now it can be found throughout California wine country in more diverse tasting spaces reflective of both…

BLACKLOCK Blacklock’s spot in Soho serves London’s most popular Sunday roast, drawing a crowd for its heaping platters of charcoal-roasted beef, lamb, or pork. The “All In” features three meats piled high with all the trimmings, along with a bubbling crock of cheesy cauliflower. Book in advance. (From $21 per person, theblacklock.com) THE QUALITY CHOP HOUSE Shaun Searley’s rustic tavern serves one of the city’s most elevated beef roasts, always pairing two cuts from the whole cows that come into its attached butcher shop—one slow-braised, the other butter-roasted. Don’t miss the justly famous thousand-layer confit potatoes. (From $38 per person, thequalitychophouse.com) THE DRAPERS ARMS For the classic pub roast experience, head to this bright, bustling, duplex boozer in Islington, packed with rambunctious groups at big wooden tables whiling away…

MY FRIEND JUSTIN SMILLIE is one of those larger-than-life New York City restaurant characters who accrues nicknames like a billionaire compounds interest. He’s a big guy with a big personality, a chef whose cooking yields layers of big flavors. So it makes sense that the new hit at his Miami outpost of Upland is a big salad: It’s large-format, composed of pristine ingredients stacked vertically along the interior curve of a giant wooden bowl, and served with a generous crystal carafe of buttermilk ranch dressing. It turns heads in the dining room. At home, the dish is dinner party gold: Assemble it ahead of time in the biggest, prettiest bowl you own, and pass it around the table with tongs, or serve it tableside with a butler’s flair. Balance…

MAD GENIUS TIP The high speed of the blender’s blades creates enough friction to cook the carrots while they puree. Harissa-Spiced Carrot Soup With Almonds and Rosemary PHOTO AT LEFT TOTAL 20 MIN; SERVES 6 A high-speed blender not only cooks and purees the carrots at the same time, but it also perfectly emulsifies the butter into the soup, which adds richness and a velvety texture. 2 lb. large carrots, peeled and diced (about 5⅓ cups) 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth 1 cup water 2 tsp. harissa paste 1½ tsp. kosher salt ¼ cup cold unsalted butter, cubed ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil ½ cup marcona almonds ¼ cup fresh rosemary leaves 1. Combine carrots, broth, 1 cup water, harissa paste, and salt in a high-speed blender. Pulse until…

DAVE ARNOLD AND DON LEE, the cocktail masterminds behind Existing Conditions in Greenwich Village, like their Manhattans between 21.2 and 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit. But you can’t get to that specific level of frostiness by stirring liquor with ice: Your cocktail would be far too watery before it dipped anywhere near that temperature. Pre-mixing batches of the bar’s rye-forward Manhattan in bottles and stashing them in a precisely calibrated cooler allows Arnold and Lee to separate chilling from dilution, resulting in a perfect drink every time. Lee notes, “Making a bottled cocktail is great for dinner party planning, too, because it lets you do the work ahead of time.” No more stirring drinks at the last minute or fussing with ice and strainers; when your guests arrive, you can spend…

EVERY NIGHT, MY KITCHEN ISLAND IS covered with after-school snack plates, my dinner prep, homework, and—despite my scolding—everybody’s backpacks and workout bags, even my own. Sometimes I wonder why I did not choose a kitchen with a door to shut my mess out and their mess in, but like so many other food-possessed Americans, I wanted an open-plan kitchen that mingles living spaces and food preparation. And at the center of that kitchen, I wanted a large, multi-purpose island. The island is a metaphor for what I want a kitchen to be: an anchor in the home, a place to gather around the daily rhythm of food preparation, a semipro workstation loaded with appliances, and a stage for the off-off-off Broadway show called “Dinner” that runs in my house…

WHISKEY DECANTER Seattle artist Greg Clark makes these handsome liquor decanters by hand-blowing and imprinting the glass with a diamond pattern. He uses an antique gray to color the glass and individually grinds each stopper to ensure a tight seal. ($220, vetriglass.com) LAURENCE BRABANT GLASS OIL BOTTLE Handblown from lightweight, sturdy borosilicate (the same glass that laboratories use) by a French husband-and-wife team, this clever oil bottle has two spouts. The lower one catches any drips from the one above, meaning you never waste a drop of good EVOO. ($165, gardeshop.com) LA SOUFFLERIE GLASS CANDLESTICKS These double-walled candlesticks are made in Paris by a glass-blowing co-op specializing in using recycled glass. These make an elegant alternative to weightier table-toppers that conjure up a game of Clue. (Colonel Mustard in…

WHEN OPENING HIS EPONYMOUS Philadelphia restaurant in 2012, Greg Vernick tested about 60 different brines to find the perfect one for roast chicken, ultimately selecting a brine that delivers serious oomph through the use of seaweed and soy sauce, which enhance the savory qualities of the dish. His Wood Stone gas-assist oven adds yet another dimension of flavor: the aroma and pleasingly bitter notes of char. “We preheat the oven with gas, feed it with oak in the afternoon, and cook with oak throughout dinner service,” Vernick says. Each chicken is steamed before being roasted, then plated in a Chamba black clay roasting platter—Vernick’s way of extending the hearth into the dining room: “The idea was to connect the food to the wood-fire oven with these plates. It feels…

IT’S A QUESTION every wine lover asks: How many different wine glasses do I really need? One red and one white? Different sizes for Pinot and Cabernet? Merlot? Chardonnay? Good grief—what about aged tawny port? Well, what if the answer were just one? That’s what acclaimed wine critic Jancis Robinson began to wonder not long ago. Now, together with London tableware designer Richard Brendon, she’s released a new wine glass (yes, glass, singular), that accentuates the virtues of any wine. Handblown and elegant in design, it’s a pleasure to drink from. Admittedly, it isn’t inexpensive ($56, richardbrendon.com), but it’s definitely more affordable than buying a different glass for every grape, right? F&W: The first question has to be, why just one wine glass? JR: Because after 43 years of…

THERE IS A LINE FROM Truman Capote’s 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s that has always resonated with me. It’s the one where Holly Golightly describes the calmative effect the Manhattan jewelry store has on her—it feels like the kind of place where “nothing very bad could happen to you.” I get where she’s coming from. Tiffany’s encloses you in a world of civility and comfort and riches—the carpets are soft against your city-worn shoes; the cosseting staff pampers you in the way adults aren’t supposed to be pampered, even though it’s all we want. It’s a place that buys you something unexplainable, even if you’re only window shopping. It’s the exact same way I feel about Williams Sonoma. The moment I walk into one, I’m transported from a suburban…

NO MEAL IS MORE BELOVED BY BRITS THAN THE SUNDAY ROAST. The classic meal is a gray-weather-soothing, all-day-eating, then veg-on-the-couch-in-a-food-coma affair (think Thanksgiving, if it came once a week), and the communing around slabs of roast meat is a remarkably sturdy tradition—one that’s survived mad cow disease and the new appreciation in Britain for healthy (even vegan) eating and remains a nostalgic bulwark against the spread of American-style brunch. “What’s brunch?” says chef and roast fanatic James Knappett of London’s Bubbledogs and Kitchen Table restaurants. “A bit of granola and a poached egg? What’s the point? Let’s get something proper to eat.” Knappett and I are among 200 or so hardy diners attending what’s advertised as the ultimate gluttonous Sunday roast on an unseasonably warm Monday night in the…