Frittatas were on the menu Sunday afternoon at Y&H’s house.  It sounded like a good idea, both simple and satisfying. I started with a recipe I pulled from Mario Batali’s  Molto Italiano, which, thank God, somebody else has already added to the internets.

I figured I could easily find all the ingredients at the local farmers market, even this late in the year. I was correct on that count. I even picked up some porcinis and applewood-smoked bacon to add a little texture and flavor (and bacon!) to the recipe.

What I neglected to remember, however, are two important factors:

Read More “Home Cooking Day on Y&H: The Frustration of Making Spinach Frittatas” »

Comerford and Flay get fresh (veggies) in the White House garden.

Jeesh, speaking of predictions, Y&H should have guessed this would happen as soon as the White House broke ground on its kitchen garden in March: Iron Chef America has trotted out three of its, ahem, heaviest hitters to cook a meal from ingredients plucked from the hugely symbolic garden.

The special two-hour episode of Iron Chef America, dubbed with a stunning lack of subtlety, Super Chef Battle, features Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, who take on Bobby Flay and White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford in the competition.

The episode has already been filmed, and according to The New York Times‘ account, First Lady Michelle Obama laid out the ground rules to the teams (they had to cook five dishes using ingredients from the White House kitchen garden) and put in a good plug for her Healthy Kids Initiative.

The show will air on Sunday, Jan. 3, on the Food Network.

Not surprisingly, the air date is politically tinged. So says Y&H’s virtual friend, Obama Foodorama, who writes:

Read More “Should Have Seen This Coming: ‘Iron Chef’ Visits White House for ‘Kitchen Garden’ Challenge” »

Saturday was a vacation for me. I ate at home. Carrie and I made dinner for friends. She made a tomato tartare, based on the recipe from Michel Richard’s cookbook, Happy in the Kitchen, and I made osso buco with risotto alla Milanese, based on recipes by Mario Batali and Mark Bittman.

The tomato tartare, with its shallot dressing, performs a classic Richard trick: It fools the eye into believing the dish is something that it’s not, beef tartare in this case. (The photo above doesn’t do justice to Carrie’s dish; her initial presentation was gorgeous, but we were so eager to dip into it that we forgot to snap pics until four or five bites in. Did I mention wine was involved at this point?) The appetizer does share one thing in common with its meaty cousin, though: It goes down so damn easy.

I bought the osso buco from Wagshal’s Market, and they were beautiful, two-inch center-cut chops that even I couldn’t screw up that much. Photo after the jump.

Read More “Weekend Food Porn: Tomato Tartare and Osso Buco” »

First came Mario Batali dropping f-bombs in front of the king and queen of Spain. Then came Paula Deen accidentally dropping her pants. (See the Miami New Times video, if you dare.) I guess you could say that the South Beach Wine & Food Festival is an embarrassment of riches—or rich in embarrassment.