Table of contents for December/January 2022 in Food & Wine

2019 LAPOSTOLLE CUVÉE ALEXANDRE CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($26) Need an affordable, impressive Cab for the holidays? This Chilean example, full of ripe red- and black-currant flavors, a hint of vanilla, and fine, supple tannins, is just the ticket. It should even improve over the next few years, a rare quality at this price. 2019 TABLAS CREEK ESPRIT DE TABLAS BLANC ($50) This gorgeously complex, ageworthy blend of Roussanne and other white Rhône varieties comes from the first U.S. vineyard to achieve regenerative agriculture certification. Owner Jason Haas let me pour this vintage at our F&W Classic in Aspen this year, and it was a star of the tasting. 2014 CHAMPAGNE AYALA LE BLANC DE BLANCS ($110) Elegant, precise, and lasting, this Blanc de Blancs from Ayala may not be inexpensive, but…

RECIPE FROM NIGELLA LAWSON COOK, EAT, REPEAT THIS DESSERT IS just so fabulously festive: an exuberant, rich, and luxurious treat for the holidays. The meringue base is crisp on the outside with a soft marshmallow interior, topped with sweetened chestnut puree (sometimes labeled “chestnut spread;” you need to look out for the Clement Faugier brand), followed by swaths of softly whipped cream and splinters of bitter chocolate. The combination of chestnut, meringue, cream, and chocolate is a favored one during the holidays in Europe, where it is known as Mont Blanc in France and Monte Bianco in Italy. It is, when made traditionally, a fairly arduous task: First the chestnuts have to be cooked, peeled, pureed, and forced through a ricer over a plate, so that the soft strands of…

PAXX CARABALLO MOLL HAS BEEN COOKING in San Juan for some 20 years, carving out a reputation as a champion of the local food movement on the tiny island, as well as supporting and empowering trans and queer chefs. Born on Puerto Rico’s west coast, Moll initially landed in the more liberal San Juan to escape home and stayed for the vibrancy of the city, its colorful arts scene and public murals (they attended art school before becoming a chef), and a strong community of friends. In addition to running the kitchen at Jungle BaoBao inside the popular cocktail bar JungleBird, Moll recently opened a second spot, the seafood-focused Écume, a beachfront kiosk inside Condado’s La Marqueta food hall. —MELANIE HANSCHE BREAKFAST VIBES “If you’re a coffee person, Café Comunión (instagram.com/cafecomunion)…

Stuck in the Middle ALFAJORES DE MAIZENA ARGENTINA Extra-thick dulce de leche and tender cookies add up to the perfect bite. “I GREW UP EATING ALFAJORES, and any occasion was the right time to make them at home with my mom,” says Argentina-born instructor Mirta Rinaldi. “We’d even hold heated contests to see who could eat the most cookies! Today, they’re my signature gift, in part because it’s a joy to make them but also because they hold up in the mail so well.” Alfajores De Maizena (Sandwich Cookies Filled With Dulce De Leche) ACTIVE 45 MIN; TOTAL 2 HR 25 MIN; MAKES ABOUT 55 SANDWICH COOKIES Mirta Rinaldi learned how to make these delicate, melt-in-your-mouth sandwich cookies from her mother, and over the years she has probably made thousands.…

UMAMI BOMB “Soy and crab are a great pair, crab and butter are a great pair, and using the three together makes for an outstanding, surprising result: umami, salt, sweetness, and creaminess,” says Jim Smith of The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar in Mobile, Alabama. His best advice: “Seek out a high-quality soy sauce, and be bold with your ideas, but keep a light touch.” SWEET HEAT At Barca Pier & Wine Bar in Alexandria, Virginia, Bryant Haren marries maple syrup with cooked-down chiles. With chipotles in adobo, it’s a barbecue sauce to lacquer on wood-roasted spatchcocked chicken; it caramelizes in the heat, its sweet spice playing off the char from the fire. With blistered guajillos, it’s a pickling brine to turn sliced apples into a snappy condiment. SLIGHT BITE…

Do a quick internet search for “spa food” and you’ll find recipes for light, restorative dishes like lentil salad with citrus vinaigrette, chilled cucumber soup, and smoothies galore. Meanwhile, in Turkey, where my family is from, the spa is called the hammam, and abundance is on the menu. For the uninitiated, Turkish hammams are opulent communal bathhouses that trace their roots to the Ottoman Empire. Think deep exfoliation—we’re talking bright red skin, scrubbed and polished to the core—meets dinner party. While this bathhouse culture has evolved and somewhat eroded as a result of time, modern plumbing, and a global pandemic, I’ve always been fascinated by hearing my mother’s childhood memories of visiting the hammam on a weekly or even biweekly basis. Sure, hygiene was the driving factor for the countless…

Traditional Coca-Cola cake, a staple of the American South, usually comes in the form of a chocolate sheet cake that’s doused in a gooey glaze. The batter is splashed with a bit of cola, sometimes for flavor but mostly for fluff; the soda’s carbonation acts as a leavening agent, similar to baking soda or baking powder, helping the cake rise and come out light and airy. In her modern-day version, cookbook author Vallery Lomas flips tradition on its head by making a cola-flavored cake with cola-flavored icing. The key to Lomas’ Cocoa Cola Bundt Cake is in the Coca-Cola syrup. Lomas concentrates the cola by reducing it with sugar and adding a bit of lemon juice, and then she mixes the resulting syrup into both the cake and the icing.…

WANT TO EAT ONE of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, one that’s great for the environment and actually helps sustain local Maine fishing communities, too? Of course you do. So start buying kelp. “The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the oceans in the world,” says Briana Warner, the CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms in Saco, Maine. For decades, fishermen in Warner’s state thrived on cod, haddock, clams, shrimp, and lobster. Today, thanks to steep declines in fish populations, Maine’s lobster fishery is, as Warner puts it, “the last man standing.” Maine fishermen, she says, “have boats, run their own businesses, and have a conservation ethic, too, but they have always had multiple fisheries. Now, there’s just this one.” Warner, whose background is in economic…

The Sweetest Season WHEN SHAMIL VELÁZQUEZ talks about coquito, he talks about his mother’s kitchen in Puerto Rico, where she always makes her version of the island’s creamy and festive rum punch. This time of year, she’s opening cans of coconut milk and steeping spices on the stove. Her kitchen smells like “cinnamon, cloves, love, and warmth,” says the executive chef of Delaney Oyster House in Charleston. “[Coquito] is about sharing.” While some cookbook recipes refer to it as coconut eggnog, Velázquez’s family recipe for coquito comes with one rule: “Absolutely no egg yolks,” he says. His restaurant’s version (recipe at right) gets richness and viscosity instead from cream of coconut and three types of milk, while warming spices and white rum add aroma and flavor. In Puerto Rico, some…

Gamja Jorim (Soy Sauce–Lacquered Potatoes) TOTAL 45 MIN; SERVES 4 In this popular Korean banchan from chef Angel Barreto of Anju in Washington, D.C., tiny potatoes are simmered in a sweet-and-savory soy sauce-, garlic-, and ginger-infused syrup, resulting in potatoes with a creamy, tender interior and a gorgeously lacquered skin. 1¼ cups light corn syrup1 cup soy sauce½ cup granulated sugar2 Tbsp. canola oil1 Tbsp. finely chopped garlic1 Tbsp. finely chopped peeled fresh ginger2 lb. peewee potatoes (about ¾ inch in diameter) 1. Bring corn syrup, soy sauce, sugar, oil, garlic, and ginger to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high. Reduce to a simmer, and add potatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Using a spider or slotted spoon, transfer potatoes to a large…

AH, CHEESE AND WINE. Those cubes of rubbery cheddar speared on toothpicks, those plastic glasses of something red from a jug. The perfect pairing, right? Well. Maybe if you’re at a poetry reading in the 1970s. Otherwise, let’s rethink this situation. There are hundreds of great artisanal cheeses sold in the U.S. these days, and thousands and thousands of different wines available on store shelves. And cheese and wine do love one another—just not always. For one thing, cheeses vary widely in flavor and texture. First, there are different milks. As Kent Torrey of The Cheese Shop in Carmel, California, says, “Any mammal that gives milk, you can make cheese from it. I’ve even got an Australian camel’s milk cheese right now. It’s like a feta. And great for hump…

AT THE BUSTLING Upcountry Farmers Market on Maui one Saturday morning, a silver-haired man serenaded shoppers with his raspy violin. At his booth, Fong’s Organic, were salad greens, scallions, and … what looked to be the offspring of an heirloom tomato and an apricot? “That’s an egg fruit,” said the violinist, noticing my confusion. “It’ll take one more week to ripen.” I’d be gone in a few days, before this fruit that tastes of mango custard and has the texture of sweet potato pie would be ready. And that was the dilemma at Maui’s oldest farmers market: A lot of the stuff is not for casual blow-ins. When you’re visiting Maui—especially if you never leave the beaches, packed with wobbling palm trees and equally tipsy revelers—it’s easy to mistake the…

If you often skip breakfast or consider a morning meal a hassle, try this mindset shift: Think of it instead as an opportunity, a way to jump-start your day in a positive, proactive way. You can use this meal to front-load your waking hours with something your body needs—veggies, whole grains, fiber, probiotics, calcium, or protein—and head into whatever’s next feeling like you have a leg up. You’ll be more likely to continue the good vibes with healthier, more nourishing choices as you go through your day. Perhaps you have some leftovers that you need to use up; breakfast offers an easy way to incorporate them. (See “Easy Breakfast Ideas,” at right, for some speedy possibilities.) You can also use a brief morning sit-down as a moment of self-care, taking…

MY FAVORITE GO-TO SUMMER DRINK IS A SCOTCH and soda with a lemon twist. A light pour of blended Scotch (I like Johnnie Walker Black) into a highball of ice cubes topped with two splashes of just-opened Schweppes club soda yields an at-once super-flavorful and refreshing drink, perfect for when everyone else’s Aperol spritzes are not your thing. Last winter, burnt out on the sweetness of old-fashioneds, I craved the qualities of my summer Scotch and soda but couldn’t wrap my head around drinking something so cold and diluted. Blended Scotch can be a bit thin, dry, and hot on the palate; most of the pleasure of Scotch is in its aroma. Knowing that club soda offered not just bubbles and length to a drink, but also a fair amount…

Opening a can of sweetened condensed milk never fails to deliver a rush of anticipation and excitement. As the lid is removed, the heavy pull of the super-cooked-down sugary milk sticking to the metal surface signals its unique, rich sweetness. That lusciousness on the lid is my bonus prize, which I wipe off with a finger or spatula to snack on. Having grown up with sweetened condensed milk (SCM), I knew it as sua đac (“condensed milk”), used as a sweetener for Vietnamese-style coffees and smoothies, a dip for feather-light chunks of crisp baguette, and the basis for my mom’s steamed flan. In Vietnamese kitchens, the emptied cans make handy measuring tools. Four SCM cans’ worth of rice weighs 1 kilo. In his recipe for tart-sweet da ua (Vietnamese yogurt;…

VENISON, IF YOU’VE NEVER HAD IT, is essentially lean, grass-fed beef with a finer texture. It’s very low in fat, and because it is denser than beef, you can fill up on less. I prefer venison because, as a distance runner, I find that eating beef feels fatty and coarse to me; I can feel it slowing me down. Venison is like high-octane fuel for the body. But for most people, when autumn turns to winter and hunting seasons fade, all the prime venison roasts and backstraps are gone, and what’s left are packages upon packages of ground venison. Even if you’re not a hunter, a friend might have offered to give you a pound or five. Don’t fear the grind—though it helps to know exactly what you’re dealing with.…

FOR THE BAKER NEWLY MINTED F&W Best New Chef Paola Velez—star of our fan-favorite YouTube series, Pastries with Paola—is a magician with sugar, flour, and fruit. We couldn’t have asked a savvier chef to help us wow aspiring bakers and veteran pastry chefs this holiday season. “When I’m shopping for the bakers in my life, I’m going all out,” she says. “I’m talking about all the tools I wish someone would buy for me!” 1. TILIT RECYCLED WORK CHEF APRON IN PINK “When you wear an apron for a living, you learn what aspects matter most to you. This Tilit apron checks all of the boxes for me—it’s super lightweight, has hip and chest pockets, and the soft straps won’t scratch your neck.” ($85, tilitnyc.com) 2. STAUB ENAMELED CAST-IRON FRY…

PASTA PERFECT THERE’S A LOT OF LOVE that goes into making homemade lasagna—especially this 24-layered masterpiece from Danielle Glantz, chef and owner of Pastaio Via Corta, a pasta and provisions shop in Gloucester, Massachusetts. There, Glantz makes pasta by the pound, from nests of spaghetti alla chitarra to the sprawling sheets of sfoglia that give this lasagna its structure. While at first glance her lasagna seems like standard fare, there are delicious surprises hiding beneath its cheesy, golden brown surface. “Growing up, I didn’t really like lasagna,” says Glantz. “It was always this giant thing with lots of meat and heaping amounts of ricotta.” Granted, her reimagined lasagna remains a giant thing, but Glantz curated each ingredient and layered every component with intention to create a Northern Italian version that’s…

HERE’S SOMETHING to consider: Is rum really the answer? I’d noticed a fellow traveler in Miami International Airport a few days earlier wearing a T-shirt that assured me, in large block letters, that indeed it was. Passing by him in an unusually quiet Terminal D, I had my doubts. But now, reclined on a water’s-edge chaise, sipping from a cup brimming with rum punch the color of sunrise, I’m open to the possibility. Here on Sandy Island (mysandyisland.com), a shape-shifting sandbar just offshore from Anguilla, the British overseas territory in the Eastern Caribbean, cottony clouds are gliding silently across an impossibly blue sky. It’s a 10-minute ride from the pier in the village of Sandy Ground to the island’s eponymous restaurant, where I’ve been deposited by a boat named Bliss. Now,…

Hiking Through Fir and SPRUCE FORESTS IN THE SNOWCAPPED Peaks of Bavaria CAN BE STRENUOUS, but it comes with rich rewards: eye-popping mountain vistas and cozy, decoratively hewn almhütten (Alpine huts). Stop in, and the proprietors will feed you heaping servings of pork and dumplings paired with steins of beer, all to help fuel your mountain descent. As a Bavarian-Australian expat, to me these old-school huts are a touchstone of tradition and the mountain culture that I deeply miss. Call it nostalgia in the form of a convivial dining room filled with rustic beer hall–style benches, gingham tablecloths, hefeweizen on draft, and a menu of fortifying mega schnitzels. That was how I always remembered them until my most recent trip in 2019, where I came across a hut that thrillingly…

THERE’S AN ETHEREAL ELEGANCE TO A GREAT MARTINI, like you’re hovering above your body watching yourself drink. When I want to escape the world a bit, that’s the cocktail I reach for. I just open my freezer and pour. Yep, like many other bartenders I know, I always keep a ripping-cold batch of martinis in my home freezer. They’re easy to make. There’s no ice, no stirring or shaking. With a formula of two parts gin, one part vermouth, and one part water, the dilution is built into the batch. And the chill? That’s what the freezer’s for. Poured from an icy bottle, the alcohol in the drink pulls energy into the glass, and the martini goes from slushy to silky, boozy, and heavenly in a matter of seconds. Lush…

A while back, I was testing a recipe for grissini, or Italian breadsticks, that called for both baker’s and brewer’s yeast. Found in focaccia recipes, too, brewer’s yeast is a holdover from the early 19th century, when bakers skimmed lees (spent yeasts) from beer tanks to make their dough. In 1846, commercial baker’s yeast appeared, and brewer’s yeast retreated to the beerworks—except in Italy, where chefs like Riccardo Camanini grew up with fresh cakes of it in the fridge. Camanini is a nostalgic guy. At Lido 84 on Lake Garda, he makes a signature dish of spaghetti with butter—“the most common pasta we eat while we are babies.” At first, he flavored the sauce with lemon. After citrus season, he tried other ingredients, including the brewer’s yeast meant for the…

For Meryl Feinstein, founder of Pasta Social Club, a supper club–turned–pasta school–turned–viral Instagram account, making pasta should be about one thing and one thing only: having fun. That philosophy stands at odds with homemade pasta’s reputation, because most people think of it as a genre of cooking that requires years of practice. Although Feinstein has put in those years—after graduating from culinary school, she spent time at pasta maven Missy Robbins’ Brooklyn restaurants Lilia and Misi—she argues that pasta newbies shouldn’t be intimidated. “It’s not really about perfection,” she says. “It’s about enjoying the process.” In November 2018, Pasta Social Club started as a series of intimate dinners. Feinstein cooked tasting menus consisting entirely of pasta dishes, and strangers from across New York City came together to eat, drink, and make…