Panacea (Greens & Beans Chicken Soup)

There's something particularly unproductive about having a wracking, productive cough. This was not the piece I planned to write, this month, but as my cough and fever worsened over the weekend and into midweek, drastic measures were required. With a tiny apartment kitchen, I don't keep a lot of food in the house, so feeling too sick to run to the grocery can quickly take the food situation to critical levels. Luckily, Aaron came to my rescue with a vat of homemade chicken soup. This vegetable-forward recipe is one we've made for years and is perfect for days when you're sick or just suffering some late April chill (it is the cruelest month, after all).

Save us from this cruel month

Season of Squash (Spanish Pumpkin Stew)

Winter is coming. And I'm not just saying that as a Game of Thrones fan. With the early sunsets and icy breezes, winter is always a great time for soup, but soup is unfortunately not typically regarded as haute cuisine. I wanted to try to make a soup that would put some excitement back on the dinner table. People may appreciate chicken noodle, but it doesn't usually elicit oohs and ahs. I also wanted to find a way to feature pumpkin, as it's the signature produce of October, without falling prey to the ubiquitous assault of pumpkin spice (insert noun). Eventually, I found my way to a Spanish stew named Berza de Calabaza. Many sources list this as an Andalusian specialty, though the recipe I settled on as a base template employs a Catalan ingredient in picada: an almost pesto-like blend of toasted bread, almonds, and garlic, as a thickener. Between the pumpkin, picada,  and beans, this makes an extremely hearty winter stew to warm the toes, stick to the ribs, and lift the spirit.

Like magic

Hot Potatoes (Sweet Potato Chipotle Soup)

Lately, I've been obsessing over soups. The perfect answer to blinding snow and biting cold, they make a timely and seasonally appropriate companion. The winter pantry offers no short stock of roots like onions, potatoes, and garlic, and hardy greens like cabbage and kale, but today I extoll the virtues of the humble sweet potato. Naturally bursting with flavor and nutrients, sweet potatoes make a thick, velvety soup with a color sure to brighten up the end of the day. Some of the oldest evidence of human sweet potato consumption dates from Peru 8,000 years ago, spreading to the Caribbean by 2500 BC and Polynesia by 1000 AD. Europeans weren't lucky enough to first taste sweet potatoes until Columbus' famed voyage of 1492. I embraced a general Meso-American theme by including Mayan sweet onion and the smoky spice of chipotles in adobo.

Colorful, flavorful

To Drive the Cold Winter Away (French Onion Soup)

Jon, my father-in-law, has a French onion soup recipe that is famous throughout our family, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on it. Jon's recipes reflect the instinctive, free-form simplicity of a great home cook-a list of ingredients and a general idea rather than a rigid set of measurements. This is a large part of the mystique of historical recipes, which in addition to amazingly creative spelling, almost never do the math. "Take ye a vasty amount onions, and likewyse a potte full of stronge broth, and seethe it well over greate fyre" is all well and good, but to really guarantee an outcome, you need a formula. I always measure things out when first trying a new recipe or jotting down something for the blog. 

Meticulously measured

Carrots on Parade (Ginger Carrot Bisque)

A few weeks ago, we went to FarmAid, the benefit concert founded by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews to benefit small family farms. It was a fun event featuring terrific music and great food--only from local organic farms. Even the Chipotle chain tent sourced their ingredients from family farms. My favorite highlights of the evening were John Mellencamp's violinist, who fiddled like a woman possessed, and the photographs of produce, farming, and harvesting that played in the background the whole time. I still maintain one scene included dancing carrots.

It's harder to dance when pureed

Turkey Lurkey No More (Turkey Soup with Spinach, Fennel, and Bacon)

The time has come for clearing out Turkey Lurkey. No, not the character from Henny Penny, though he did always give me an unsavory vibe. I mean the Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past possibly now dwelling in the back of your refrigerator. Sarah and Dar stopped by on Sunday with the boys for some post-Thanksgiving family time and we all had big turkey sandwiches, but it wasn't really making a dent in the reserve. Sarah suggested I post about ways to repurpose lurking turkey, and my first entry, though on the nose, is turkey soup.

Covered in bacon!

Back to the Roots (Portuguese Kale Soup)

My sisters and I always looked forward to trips to see our grandparents. In the case of my father's family, that meant Meme and Pepe in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Meme was a grand housekeeper and avid gardener, with heady roses and prolific tomatoes always leaning over the fence. The bees buzzed heavy in her yard, looping overhead like acrobats on hidden strings. Pepe was a retired milkman, ready with a joke and rather fond of cigars.

Dip in for more

A Taste of Home (Chicken and Dumplings)

At last, I take the driver's seat! Today I bring you a family recipe, taught to me by a great-grandmother. Growing up, we moved around a bit up and down the East coast, but spent a significant amount of time in North Carolina. That afforded us the luxury of living near a large portion of my then step-father's family, including the aforementioned grandmother. She was a traditional southern cook and managed her own restaurant for years, but had since retired to maintain an extensive farm (and cook the fruits of that labor year-round).

Home cooking

A Warm Welcome (Chicken Soup with White Beans and Escarole)

Hello, ladies & gents! With warmest wishes we welcome you to the new and improved blog: GourmetGents. A and I want to take some time for ourselves and spend more time in the kitchen; to that end (and to try and add some discipline to that commitment): I lend our voice to the wider blogosphere.

This is going to be a space for us to share our thoughts on all things urbane, domestic, and, most especially, gustatory. You can look forward to weekly recipes and their related musings as well as semi-seasonal offerings for home design, housekeeping, holiday planning, the works. Ever the aspirational and ardent dilettantes, we think we have a lot to offer in these areas.

The old blog? Well, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. As it turns out, after making that first, tremulous, exploratory post, my non-cyber life got a bit more hectic. With three years, a career change, and a transplant to Pennsylvania under my belt, I think I'm ready to buckle down and actually start handing out some recipes.

The proof, so they say, is in the pudding, so let's get down to business:

Va-va-voom