The holiday season is one of my favorite times to entertain.
Earlier this week, I hosted a small business dinner for seven. My Winter House was decorated with lots of beautiful trees glistening in green, silver, and gold. Chef Molly Wenk, who has worked with me on many television and video food productions, and I, collaborated on a wonderful menu that included endive and radicchio salad, celeriac soup that I made using vegetables from my garden, beef bourguignon and mashed potatoes, and for dessert, apple tarte tatin. It was a great evening and a most delicious late autumn feast.
Enjoy these photos.
I always fill my Winter House rooms with many trees during the holidays – big, small, fresh, and charming feather trees like this one in my entrance hall, adorned with bright gold ornaments.
In my Brown Room, my long table is also decorated with gold and umber colored bottlebrush trees down the center with deer.
Each table setting has coordinating plates and napkins – all ready for a delicious meal.
I served a wonderful endive and radicchio salad. Both endive and radicchio are part of the chicory family. Endive has a mild, slightly bitter flavor, while radicchio tastes more bold and peppery – they are great together. Frisée is also known as curly endive or chicory endive and adds a nice green color to this assortment.
The dressing is a light and refreshing shallot vinaigrette.
Beef bourguignon takes about three to four hours to complete. This duration includes preparation, searing of the meat, braising, and resting. After 90-minutes in the oven, Molly takes it out to check. She is using one of my Enamel Cast Iron Dutch Ovens – see my latest pieces at my shop on Amazon.
It’s looking so delicious. Beef bourguignon, or beef burgundy, is a classic and rich slow-cooked French stew with chunks of fork-tender beef braised in red wine and vegetables.
The dish will be topped with mushrooms, pearl onions, pancetta cubes and herbs when done. Here is Molly preparing the mushrooms.
Molly also made mashed potatoes to serve with the beef bourguignon.
This is celeriac, also known as celery root. It is the root of the celery plant and has an earthy flavor with a hint of celery. I grow celeriac every year and love to use it for soup.
For dessert, I decided to serve apple tarte tatin. Tarte tatin is a classic French dessert with caramelized apples, baked under a flaky pastry crust and served upside down. Molly starts by melting down the butter and sugar in a skillet.
Once the caramel is the right consistency, it is used to coat the apple slices.
Molly arranges the apples in a circular pattern, overlapping them slightly to create a spiral.
Then the entire skillet is covered with pastry dough cut to fit just over the apples.
It is placed into the oven and baked until the crust is golden brown.
Inside my Winter House kitchen, beautiful white feather trees are decorated and displayed on my counter.
Here is my celeriac soup topped with homemade brioche croutons.
The colorful endive and radicchio salad is served next.
Here’s our entrée – a generous serving of beef bourguignon on a bed of silky mashed potatoes.
A side of pees is also served to my guests.
And here is the apple tarte tatin – baked perfectly and then decorated with gold leaf.
A lovely slice with a dollop of crème fraîche – not a morsel was left on anyone’s plate. It was a delicious meal for all.
This holiday season, please stop by a winter market or crafts fair where you live and support local makers - it's a great way to meet the artisans and learn about their specialties.
Over the weekend, I drove up to Stissing House for its third annual Holiday Craft Feast. Stissing House is a charming country restaurant in the historic town of Pine Plains, New York in Duchess County. For two days, Stissing House opened its doors to 50 collectors and craftspeople selling many collectibles and handmade items such as pottery, baskets, woven textiles, jewelry, knits, etc. Hundreds of ticketed guests walked through the space and shopped. There were carolers, craft projects, and lots of refreshments. It was a wonderful place to meet entrepreneurs, shop for gifts, and celebrate the holidays.
Enjoy these photos - most were taken by my grandnephew Silas Slater.
I attended the event with my niece, Sophie Herbert Slater, her handsome son Silas, and my dear friend Terre Blair. Silas took most of these photos – he is an excellent photographer. The brooms I bought are from Custodian Studio.
It was a very cold day in the Northeast, but inside it was warm, cozy, and filled with holiday cheer.
And there was a good supply of wood for the fire.
Thee were lots of sweets to try including the quince donuts. If you’ve never tried a quince jelly donut, it adds a sweet and floral flavor to the dough.
There were also lots of cookies.
And delicious popcorn, ready to bag up and enjoy.
At this station, bone broth made right at Stissing House for those needing a little more warmth.
Here’s a photo Silas took of his mother Sophie and Stissing House chef and proprietor, Clare de Boer.
One of the first vendors we visited was Roseland. The table was filled with beautifully made pottery.
Among them, this charming salt cellar.
Here are some forced winter flower bulbs that should open by Christmas – offered by English Garden Grown.
Maine Heritage Weavers sold many warm blankets.
These damask linens were weaved at The Burroughs Garret in Newbury, Vermont.
One could also make their own miniature brooms.
Here is a group learning how to tie and shape their brooms from Cynthia at Sunhouse Craft. Broom making is a meticulous process often passed down through generations.
Silas made this one – it is excellently crafted.
I saw other colleagues at the event. Here’s our own Ryan Mesina enjoying some cookies.
JLD Knives had these handmade offerings made by Jack Dolan who uses carbon steel, stainless steel and wood as his sources.
This collector’s table is set up by Warren Battle, co-owner of @battle_brown from nearby Hudson, New York.
Here are some of the wonderful handmade pieces from Signe Ceramics.
More beautifully crafted pottery from Amanda Moffat.
Stissing House also had some great items for sale, such as shortbread cookies by Laurie Ellen, cheese, ginger cake, hot sauce, and holiday ornaments.
And here’s young Silas taking a short break by the Christmas tree. Thanks for all the great photos, Silas. And what a fun event, Stissing House. Thanks to Clare, Katie Pearce, and Nathan Rawlinson for setting it all up. Looking forward to next year.
If you don't already love the dome-shaped Italian sweet bread, panettone, you have not yet tried the traditional Christmas treat made by Pastry Chef Pierluigi Mazzella.
Pierluigi is the proprietor and master baker of Fatto a Mano in Westport, Connecticut. Starting in September when holiday ordering opens, Pierluigi and his team work around the clock making hundreds of soft, fragrant, and flavorful panettone using only the best ingredients shipped from Italy. From start to finish, each panettone takes three to four days to make, and Pierluigi makes every one. He offers traditional Orange Raisin Panettone, Chocolate Chip Panettone, Triple Chocolate Cherry Medio, Chocolate Chip Rhum Raisin Panettone, and others in medium and large sizes.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Fatto a Mano is an artisanal Italian micro-bakery that specializes in all-naturally made leavened items such as sourdough bread, focaccia, pane siciliano, and of course, panettone.
This is a chocolate chip panettone freshly baked. It’s one of the bakery’s most popular breads this season.
All of Chef PierLuigi’s authentic panettone comes from this starter he calls “Giorgio” – which traveled with him all the way from his hometown in Italy. In just eight years, Chef has gone from baking in his own home basement to working in a commercial kitchen and opening a storefront. He has an incredible passion for learning, researching, and baking only the best panettone.
Chef Pierluigi makes the dough for his panettone in large batches of three. This makes about 200 medium panettone breads.
During the busy holiday season, Chef starts making the doughs very early in the morning before sunrise. The dough is made with soft flour, European butter with at least 82% fat, water, organic eggs, sugar, fresh vanilla beans from Madagascar, and the selected flavor ingredients. Here, he is pouring in the egg yolks.
The dough is very buttery. The butter is used both as a flavor enhancer and as a structural component resulting in an airy and tender crumb.
The dough is mixed precisely and then separated according to weight.
In Chef Pierluigi’s kitchen, one can find several kinds of panettone at different stages. This dough is mixed with dark chocolate and espresso – the aroma and flavor is unmatched.
Here is another Espresso & Dark Chocolate panettone ready to shape. Chef Pierluigi and his crew have to bake hundreds of panettoni a day, so it is crucial that the crew works efficiently and quickly.
Each panettone is shaped into a disc weighing exactly one pound for medium. Then the panettone dough is left to proof, or rise.
This is the traditional Italian flavor – Orange Raisin Panettone, which is naturally leavened and fermented for more than 42-hours. Air bubbles indicate the dough is good and light – essential for perfect panettone.
It contains homemade candied orange and fresh raisins. The orange adds a distinct yet subtle citrus flavor, while the raisins provide the perfect sweetness.
The domed discs are made and left to rise – each one is filled with fruits.
Traditional panettone paper wrapping is used to preserve the texture and moisture during storage. These are all lined up and ready to be filled.
After proofing, the panettone is placed into its paper wrap and then left to proof again. Look closely, once the dough rises to the mark, it is ready to bake.
These will proof for four to eight hours and then checked for readiness.
After baking, the panettone is hung upside down for 12 to 14 hours to ensure proper cooling. This is also done to maintain its domed shape.
Here are rows of panettone cooling on the racks. If not done properly, the panettone could collapse.
This panettone is cut down the center – so soft and aromatic.
Chef Pierluigi opens this fresh and perfect chocolate chip panettone to show its wonderful pillowy center.
The inside is almost golden, and stretches instead of crumbling when cut open.
I ordered many orange panettoni to give as gifts – any recipient of this delicious Italian confection will be so happy.
At Fatto a Mano, Chef Pierluigi and his talented team also make and offer Country Sourdough, Roasted Garlic Sourdough, Multigrain Porridge Pan Loaf, Pane Siciliano, and so many other delicious breads – all hand made.
There’s Cantucci Toscani, a traditional Tuscan biscotti that is crunchy and perfect for dipping.
Ricciarelli Biscotti is soft, chewy and coated with powdered sugar. Its flavor is a delicate almond and citrus.
Savory offerings such as this salmon toast are also available and made fresh to order.
For those wanting to make their own baked items, Fatto a Mano offers authentic Italian ingredients.
If you’re in or near Westport, Connecticut, stop by Fatto a Mano and try any one of his delicious breads, sandwiches, or sweets. And pick up some panettone – you will love it. If you’re not close, visit his web site – just click on this highlighted link. Fatto a Mano is still taking holiday orders!
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