A revelation: Foie gras with raspberries and red bell pepper jelly

How do you make foie gras go with Beaujolais Villages? Start by giving the chef a glass or two. Just so that he can get the creative juices flowing… The young chef at Auberge de Chantemerle came up with an incredibly creative and unique idea that worked beautifully: Foie gras with a jelly of red…

Verget Chassagne Montrachet Pimont 2004

The best white Burgundies of 2004 come from Cote d’Or. Why? Because Cote d’Or had, on average, lower acids and higher alcohols than Chablis or the Maconnais for climactic reasons. Verget harvested very late in Chablis which is why their 2004 Chablis are some of the best Chablis ever produced. Pimont is a village lieu…

Jerusalem artichoke, foie gras and truffle

Jerusalem artichoke (topinambour in French)-this is a root vegetable that the French elders detest because that and potatoes is what they ate during the war, and nothing else. Some great French chefs are bringing this veggie back into vogue. It is a great trampoline for both foie gras and truffles. A nearly perfect mixture. There…

Butter or olive oil? That is the question.

    Guess what? I don’t know if it was the fact that the olive oil was so fresh, so pure, so perfect. That nuttiness, that fruit, that earth, that terroir. The oil went better with the truffle than the butter. The sweet creaminess of the butter perhaps made the truffle aroma denser and more…