This past Sunday was one of those autumn days, days that remind you of your childhood; the kind of sunny sky and warm wind that is the last tease before the long mid-west winter.

It’s time to get the rakes out of the garage and make an afternoon of cleaning the yard and battening hatches.

I stored all the clay pots, put away the patio furniture, hung the bikes and cut all the annual plants to the ground.

Weekend warriors with leaf blowers strapped to their backs give each other the knowing salute of someone who has surrendered to the whims of nature.

This house is the house I drew in art class as a little girl. The meandering stone walkway, which I built in the spring, is just as I had always imagined my walkway would be, someday.

After a day of bagging and hauling leaves it was time for dinner.

Only a veggie pizza from the neighborhood pizza joint would do. A nice malbec and a seat under the stars was the perfect way to end the day.

The food and drink debauchery which was my “Birthdaypalooza” has finally ended. I never thought that I would say such a thing; however, I don’t think that I could’ve gone on much longer and survived.

Thanks to my bff M I had a birthday to remember with all of the trimmings.
The big day was Saturday the 24th, however, we started at Lilly Chocolates on Thursday, then we head over to Athen’s Pastries then to M’s for wine.

Friday night he entertained me and some friends in grand style at his beautiful home, fireside with fancy cocktails from his wickedly creative mind! J suprised me with a beautiful bracelet and made me feel like a princess. We all went to Luxe for a fantastic dinner. I had the tuna and far too many champagne cocktails!

Saturday was an afternoon of lunch and shopping with mom, (More on her in another post!) an early supper with D at Tartine then off for cocktails with C, G and D at the Market Avenue Wine Bar. Again, far too much wine.

Sunday, my daughters thought that it would be nice to have a family dinner; lobsters, shrimp, scallops, mashed potatoes, two bottles of wine and one bottle of champagne later I officially surrendered.

This is my new favorite place to be.

Leave it to my bff M to make a fantastic discovery. Still shopping for furniture, which is fine with me because it leads to so much fun and mischief!

Lilly’s offers a superior selection of wine, beer and liquors. The specialty chocolates are amazing and made by hand at Lilly’s.

They offer pairings of beers and chocolates including Lambic Framboise with raspberry dark chocolate and Hitachino Nest West Ginger beer with peanut butter, kaffir, lime leaves, srirancha, white chocolate.

Truly sophisticated and fashion forward, Lilly’s is a true gem in Tremont and everywhere!

Order on line and treat yourself to something extraordinary.

Potatoes fried in Duck fat with garlic and rosemary. These are quite possibly the best French fries ever.

These fries are hardy food. They come with spicy mayo dipping sauces and stand alone with rich Cabernets or Belgian wheats.

Be forewarned; these fries are addictive and will leave you craving more, every time!

The wine and beer list at Bar Cento in Cleveland, OH is excellent and is rivaled by few.

Come for the fries and beer and stay for an inspired menu of ecclectic, innovative comfort food with a sophistcated twist.

This is the time of year when I feel that we are turning a corner. Summer gives way to Autumn, daylight savings time starts, the school year is in full swing, my eldest daughter celebrates another birthday , as do I, and the holidays are bearing down on us like a locomotive at full speed. All good stuff!

We are preparing for the winter ahead and nesting; battening the hatches and our menus are becoming hardier. Rich thick smells are coming out of the kitchen now. We are baking more bread and using cinnamon in the squash. I’m stuffing fish and roasting root vegetables with wine, garlic and butter.

I’ve talked to famous chefs and asked them what they like to cook for family and friends and the overwhelming response that I get is comfort food with lots of ingredients.

It seems to me that our cooking instinct is to fill our meals with the ingredients that evoke the best of our childhood memories. And food smells always seem to have that effect.

I will never forget my daughter’s 16th birthday this past week. We had dinner at Pier W, a lovely seafood restaurant complete with a piano bar and vast water and city views.

She has definitely turned the corner from little girl to young lady. She, of course, ordered the lobster and had white chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Her younger sister had a swanky version of macaroni and cheese.

As I sit at the table I am drinking in every nuance, every smell and every feeling. I am taking mental notes; notes on ingredients and techniques for meals that I want to cook and on flavors long forgotten and rediscovered. And remembering meals past, like this one; celebrations with family and friends.

Listening to Jazzy standards on the piano and being with my family, sharing a glass of wine and beautiful food; I felt the weight of this moment, the grand significance of a threshold being crossed. You could almost see it; I could definitely feel it and holding back the tears became my challenge

So, for now, back to the food, because the tastes and smells will forever create these stirrings of love and family and the memory of the innocence of a journey just begun.

The Scallops Piccata was perfect and served with braised spinach and crispy fried carrot strings. We had a bottle of, surprise, Colume Malbec. What can I say? It is my current favorite grape and complimented our meals quite nicely.

We finished with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot; it’s a family favorite and the kids love it. (Just special occasions, of course!)

I will never think of scallops the same, again. And I am sure that I will never be able to eat white chocolate cheesecake without tearing up just a bit.

I am glad that I took these photos before I cooked the scallops and shrimp because as soon as they were cooked they were eaten.

First of all it was so easy, second of all it took maybe 15 minutes.

I picked up some nice looking jumbo shrimp and large Bay scallops. I had some lemon, garlic and butter. That was it.

We were drinking Trapiche Malbec. Probably not the best choice with seafood but it was what we had and it was yummy.

I started by melting the butter in a large skillet then added crushed garlic which I placed on the 2 tablespoons of butter, so it wouldn’t get brown, then squeezed lemon into the skillet.

I put the scallops on the bottom and laid the shrimp on top of them. They cooked for maybe 8 to 9 minutes on high.

People were picking them out of the pan! I plated these then squeezed on more fresh lemon and they lasted for about 10 minutes!

This meal was low calorie, delicious and nutritious.

I had an unexpectedly great time last night. Not the least of which is due to the fact that I was with my bff M. He brought me along to a clambake given for employees of the hospital where he works.

I had forgotten how much I love Clambakes. Not just the food but the idea of a clambake.

The very nature of the meal creates a convivial experience due to the complete informality of the meal; cracking lobsters with your hands, crunching on corn-on-the-cob, butter soaked fingers prying open clams; those lobster bibs! I even managed to fling a lobster claw across the table, Julia Roberts’s style in Pretty Woman.

Although I was a little embarrassed the “flinging” only served to create laughter and friendly open conversation among virtual strangers. I was seated next to the most charming couple. I spent the evening chatting with a physician from Peru who enjoyed sharing with me his favorite books. He and his lovely wife were looking forward to a trip to Hungary next month.

Drinking Chardonnay from a box never tasted so good. We had Little Neck Clams, lobster, corn on the cob, red skin potatoes, sweet potatoes, filet mignon, and fried chicken. By the end of the evening we were laughing like old friends sharing dieting stories and our favorite brownie recipes.

Not just a dinner party a clambake is a way to enjoy the company of old friends and an easy way to make new ones!

Below I’ve included an easy clambake menu but you can always vary it to include your favorites or what is readily available. The internet has a wealth of information to help you plan the clambake that is perfect for you. The most important ingredient is the spirit of fun and friendship and to relax. It’s about casual fun, friends, beers and wine from a box!

INGREDIENTS
SERVES ABOUT 12

1. 3 pounds new potatoes
2. Twelve 1-pound lobsters
3. 12 pounds littleneck clams, scrubbed and rinsed
4. 2 pounds dried chorizo sausage
5. 1 dozen ears of unhusked corn
6. 6 sticks (1 1/2 pounds) unsalted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large, deep pot, cover the potatoes with cold, salted water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Drain well.

2. On a flat beach, dig a 6-by-4-foot pit 2 feet deep. Line the pit with 90 rocks. Dig a 2-foot-wide pit nearby, also 2 feet deep.

3. Using 8 logs, build a bonfire in the large pit. Over the next hour and 45 minutes, add 6 logs to the fire every 15 minutes, building the fire outwards so that it covers the base of the pit. After the first 45 minutes, as the logs turn to coals, add 20 rocks to the fire. When the logs have completely turned to coals, after about 2 hours, shovel the 20 rocks to the sides. Leaving a 1-inch-thick layer of coals atop and between the rocks, shovel the rest of the coals into the smaller pit and extinguish with water.

4. Meanwhile, using a screwdriver, perforate the baking pans, punching holes in the bottoms about every inch.

5. Arrange the lobsters and potatoes together in 6 of the pans. Arrange the clams, chorizo and corn in the 6 remaining pans.

6. Wearing mitts, line the pit with a 1/2-inch-thick layer of rockweed. Arrange the pans on the rockweed in a single layer. Top the pans with a 1-inch-thick layer of rockweed. Fold the tarps in half lengthwise to measure 5 by 8 feet. Stack them on top of the rockweed. Weight down the edges of the top-most tarp with the remaining 10 rocks to trap the steam. Bake for about 1 hour, checking after 45 minutes. The lobsters and potatoes should be done; the clams, corn and chorizo will need another 15 minutes. When cooked, the lobsters will be bright red, the clams open, and the corn and potatoes fork-tender. Serve with melted butter.

I don’t know about you but I like to feel as though I am on the cutting edge; “edgy”.
I don’t know how realistic that is living in the Midwest, I mean, no matter how new it is here it is surely falling out of favor already in the trendy parts of the world. In any case I have decided that it is all relative. If it’s new to me, it’s new. And if nobody I know knows about it yet, well then, now I’m edgy!

Now, for a town of no more than 18,000 people we have, within a half mile radius, 4 wine stores. This does not count the extensive wine selections at the small chain and boutique grocery stores within the same distance.

I feel that the proprietors and sommeliers in my town are on top of things and there is always a wine tasting going on somewhere. Wine distributors and suppliers frequently seem to be coming back from a trip to Napa, Argentina, or the Veuve Clicquot Champagne house in France.

So, here I am at one of my favorite stores looking for a Malbec; a wine which I enjoy greatly which is from Argentina, something I “discovered” about 2 years ago, and I get a hot tip from the wine guy that Carmenere is the new one to watch. It is a revival of an old varietal that is very much like a Malbec and similar to the popular Merlot grape.

Like the Malbec, Carmenere was popular in France in the mid 1800’s and was used to produce the Bordeaux blend. The finicky Carmenere grape took too long to ripen and fell out of favor with winemakers. The grape found its way to Chile and is making a comeback after being mistaken for Merlot for decades. Vintners are sorting through their vines and rediscovering the Carmenere.

It is nice to have new choices and to enjoy a bit of history. Although, not everyone is enthusiastic about the Carmenere and consider it at most to be no more than a good table wine, that’s ok with me. I like knowing that I am enjoying the craftsmanship of those who have given special time and attention to coax the best out of a long forgotten fussy little grape.

I am planning to hang in with this grape, which much like me needs a lot of sun and a little extra time to develop to its fullest potential.

Fashion Week is upon us and I am having thoughts of cashmere and squash soups! Every autumn these things happen. Lush fabrics and vibrant colors conjure fantasies of a lifestyle which includes lunch with girlfriends, movies in the afternoon, and wine by a fireplace.

I want to wear beautiful scarves with embroidered edges and eat risotto with wild mushrooms and a warm chocolate dessert.
Autumn ushers in the best of haute couture and the best of haute cuisine.

As far as I am concerned, Fall is the beginning of the eating season. With the holidays right around the corner, and cooler weather in the forcast, our palates are primed for rich meals of silken textures and hues that please the eye as much as the tastebuds.
You can’t wear suede boots and order a salad. Only Lobster bisque will do, with a boujolias and warm crusty bread.

Autumn beckons us with complexity and layers; layers of merino wool and silk and of nutmeg, subtle yet sublime, in the cauliflower gratin; unexpected but very much appreciated.

So, let the show begin! Like an off-Broadway production we ready ourelves for the best the season of eating has to offer.

This one is too easy and incredibly delicious. You will feel good about it because this recipe uses leftovers yet you will feel quite fancy because it is French and can be served with great wine, beautiful music and your dearest friends. Talk about an impressive evening on the cheap. I mean all the left over cheeses, from cheddars to goat, brie and blue and don’t be afraid to throw in your childs Kraft junk; I’m serious!
With some fresh fruit, crusty bread and a nice bottle of wine, this recipe will quickly become one of your favorites. It’s almost too easy to be considered a recipe but feel free to put your stamp on it. You can’t help but vary the ingredients, however, I have seen this done with vegetable broth, leek reduction; you could use mushroom broth, etc.; you can definitely add your touch. Be creative and make this your own!

Adapted from Jacques Pepin

INGREDIENTS
1. 1/2 pound cheese pieces
2. 1 garlic clove
3. 1/4 cup dry white wine
4. Black pepper
5. Salt

Method

Put about 1/2 pound of cheese pieces in the bowl of a food processor, add 1 garlic clove, about 1/4 cup of dry white wine and a big grinding of black pepper. Salt is usually not needed, but taste the mixture and add some if it is. Process for 30 seconds or so, until the mixture is creamy, but not too soft.

This will keep in the freezer. You can use it right out of the food processor but do let it sit in the fridge for about 3-4 days minimum for maximum flavor.

Broiled on some beautiful bread is the ideal way to prepare and serve this treat.
Enjoy!