Bucatini with Chicken Livers and Gizzards

Not wanting to shock those people just cannot abide organ meats, we tempered this post with a photo of the Tomato Bread we made to accompany the bucatini.

Now for the offal...

Even as a child, my favorite part of the chicken was the gizzard. In D.C. last week, I stopped by Eastern Market and found a beautiful fresh bucatini which one doesn't often find fresh. Bucatini is a pasta that can stand up to anything and passing my favorite poultry vendor, I knew just what would top that fresh bucatini. I bought some chicken lives and gizzards. As they came from a reputable vendor, the gizzards were clean and neat. The problem with cooking a dish with livers and gizzards is the vast difference in cooking times. Chicken livers cook in a minute or two but the gizzards need a good hour of simmering to get them tender, or as tender as a gizzard gets. Personally, the chewiness of gizzards doesn't bother me. If you are cooking this dish for a crowd, however, dropping the gizzards in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes would be the way to go.

Bucatini with Chicken Livers and Gizzards

1 pound bucatini
1/2 pound chicken gizzards, cooked till tender
1/2 pound chicken livers
1 tablespoon flour
1 small onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
several sage leaves, chopped, with additional leaves for garnish
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper


In a small saucepan, add the chicken gizzards and cover with water and simmer about an hour until somewhat tender as gizzards will never get that tender.

Roughly chop the cooked gizzards and dredge with the livers in the flour.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil as you begin the sauce. Fresh pasta will take about 2 minutes, dried pasta will take about 10 minutes. You will want your pasta to be ready as the sauce is finishing. The sauce will take about 10 minutes to finish, so start the dried pasta now.

In a large skillet, add the oil and saute the onion for a minute or two. Add the gizzards and liver, being careful as chicken livers are notorious for making the oil pop. cook for about 2 minutes and add the sage. Cook another minute. Add the chicken stock, stirring to reduce. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the cream, stirring to incorporate and cook for about 1 minute.

Drain the bucatini, reserving a bit of the water, and add the pasta to the skillet with the sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, add a bit of the pasta water to loosen it. Garnish with the extra sage.

Even the squeamish might dig into this pasta. If not, more for me!

Etiquette Wednesday -- New York Times

Who could resist this article from the New York Times about the demise of manners in the South. It is those damn Yankees coming in and being all rude and such. From now on, you over-paid, raised-by-wolves sports yahoos better remember that a man always gives up his seat for a lady.

The Snows of October

Seriously?

If I wanted snow in October I would have moved to Denver or

Alaska or some Scandinavian country. OK, it wasn't a lot of snow, but it was October!

Mummy's Boy

Happy Halloween

Autumn's Bounty

Since word is out that I cook, I get a lot of food related gifts, from snapping turtles to homemade wine. A couple of weeks ago, a truck pulled into my drive way and Dina carried in 3 enormous bags of apple and 6 equally enormous bags of pears. I immediately stared making preserves. I cooked and cooked.

I made apple jam with Chinese 5 spice. I made apple butter. I made apple preserves with Bourbon soaked currants.


I pear preserves with white balsamic. I made pear and ginger preserves.



I went to DC for several days and left a huge pile of apples and pears that I didn't get to. Even after the raccoon came in and at his fill of apples, I still have more to do. Clearly I need a big old commercial kitchen!

Women Reading

Simone de Beauvior by Gisèle Freund, 1952

Dora at Doe Run Farm

I am a big fan of Dora Carrington as well as the Omega Workshops. One day I was flipping through a book of Carrington's art and came across a small woodcut illustration she had done at the Omega Workshops. The woodcut was done for David Garnett, whom she later painted.

David Garnett by Dora Carrinton, 1919

The woodcut was for David Garnett's honey.


I later found another version of the woodcut, this one printed in two colors.




We make honey here at Doe Run Farm... actually the bees make the honey and I just watch. I wanted a nice label for our honey and when I saw Carrington's label I knew I wanted it for our honey. So we appropriated the Garnett label as our own.



It is our homage to Carrington and to our bees.

Reddress

While we are talking about The London Design Festival... during the Festival The Finnish Institute in London installed Reddress.

Aamu Song & Johan Olin are Company, a Finnish firm of artists artists designers. In 2004, Aamu Song designed Reddress.

The gigantic dress is made of over 600 yards of Kvadrat’s classic Divina wool fabric. A performer climbs a hidden staircase and is fitted into the bodice of the dress to perform. the skirt, reaching 65 feet in diameter contains 238 pockets. Audience members climb into a pocket in the folds of the dress and become a part of the performance. Here Aamu Song discusses Reddress.

A View From The London Design Festival

In 2003 The London Design Festival was founded. It is a free flowing call to view design in a large way. Cultural as well as commercial, it has all the things a good festival needs including posters and t-shirts. The other major element of the Festival is a selection of "Landmark Projects." These are large commissioned works that spring up during the Festival. Two caught my eye.

Credit: Dennis Gilbert

The first was produced by AL_A, some say the leading architectural firm in England, helmed by Stirling Prize-winning architect Amanda Levete. Levete was chosen to build new galleries for the Victoria & Albert Museum. For The London Design Festival AL_A produced Timber Wave, a three story lattice cascade that, according to Levete, "respond[s] in some way to the entrance of the V&A. For us it was about making very explicit the London Design Festival residency there. We wanted to take the V&A out onto the street."

Credit Stephen Citrone

The second was by John Pawson. I admit from the start that I have very mixed emotions about John Pawson. At times his minimalism strikes me as kind of a joke, like a giant white box with a single chair and tiny vase. And sometimes, his work seems magical. Mostly, my attraction to Pawson came from a cookbook he did with Annie Bell, Living and Eating. I liked the book, though not Pawson's kitchen.



For The London Design Festival, Pawson teamed up with Swarovski to created a meniscus – the largest lens possible to manufacture. Pawson sets the lens Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral. The installation entitled, "Perspectives," shows off the rarely seen Geometric Staircase. The meniscus sits on a reflective hemisphere at the bottom of the stairwell. Suspended in the tower’s cupola above the stairwell is a spherical convex mirror.

Credit: Dezeen

According to Pawson these optical devices create an extraordinary composite image of the view up through the tower for visitors gathered around the hemisphere at the base, allowing them "to see beyond the level of the naked eye."

Credit: Philip Sinden

For Pawson, "It has never really been about what we put into the space, so much as how we enable people to see what is already there."

Bag'o Meatloaf *Update*

We do like to be on the cutting edge.
Yesterday we posted about using The Paper Chef's bags.
Today... The New York Times posted about them.
Plus, our readers have some additional ideas about using these cool little bags.