Latest news with #JuliaChild
New York Post
2 days ago
- Lifestyle
- New York Post
If you buy one thing during the Nordstrom sale, make it this $300 Le Creuset oven
New York Post may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our links. Featured pricing is subject to change. I have a rule about cookware: if I wouldn't carry it into battle or leave it in my will, it doesn't belong in my kitchen. Which is why, after years of flirting with cheaper dupes and vintage Craigslist finds, I finally caved and bought the Le Creuset Dutch oven. This thing isn't just cookware; it's an heirloom disguised as a casserole vessel. Right now, the iconic 8-quart oval version is a wild 36% off during the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, which almost never happens. That brings it down to under $300 — still an investment, but the kind that pays for itself every time you braise short ribs, simmer bolognese, or bake sourdough and suddenly feel like Julia Child. I'm a part-time private chef, and I didn't get mine on sale. You? You're smarter than I. If you've ever picked up one of these babies, you know: it's heavy. In a good, you-could-fight-a-bear-with-it kind of way. The enamel is silky smooth, the colors are stupidly gorgeous, and the lid fits like a vault door. I use mine for everything from slow-cooked coq au vin to panic-week pasta sauce. It distributes heat like a dream and looks stunning doing it. Add to cart, write it off as a personality upgrade, and thank me later. Nordstrom This kitchen icon combines beauty and brawn, with a cast iron body that retains and evenly distributes heat and a chip-resistant enamel coating that's both non-reactive and easy to clean. The oval shape is ideal for roasting whole birds or slow-braising large cuts of meat, and the tight-fitting lid locks in moisture for maximum flavor. Oven-safe up to 500°F and available in a range of stunning colors, this is the one-pot wonder you'll reach for over and over again — and it's 36% off at Nordstrom right now. This article was written by Kendall Cornish, New York Post Commerce Editor & Reporter. Kendall, who moonlights as a private chef in the Hamptons for New York elites, lends her expertise to testing and recommending cooking products – for beginners and aspiring sous chefs alike. Simmering and seasoning her way through both jobs, Kendall dishes on everything from the best cookware for your kitchen to cooking classes that will level-up your skills to new dinnerware to upgrade your holiday hosting. Prior to joining the Post's shopping team in 2023, Kendall previously held positions at Apartment Therapy and at Dotdash Meredith's Travel + Leisure and Departures magazines.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
My Five-Ingredient Frenchy Fish
It's Bastille Day, as good an excuse as any for cooking something festive, French and buttery. Roasted white fish with lemony almondine, for example, fits the Gallic bill with panache. A riff on sole Meunière, the classic dish that made Julia Child fall in love with France (as the story goes), my version features delicate fish fillets topped with a brown butter lemon sauce flecked with toasted almonds and parsley. You can use any kind of mild fish here, but I like thick fillets of cod or haddock, which profit from ample applications of the golden sauce. Serve it with a baguette — and, naturellement, cold glasses of Champagne. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Charred cherry tomato pasta: There are many ways to combine cherry tomatoes and pasta, and most of them are good. But Kevin Pang goes a step beyond in his simple, summery take. First, he blasts the tomatoes under the broiler until they char and release all their tangy-sweet juices. Then he adds a little butter, garlic, Parmesan and basil. But in an unexpected twist, he tops each serving with a raw egg yolk, which each person can mix into the sauce to add creaminess and depth. So smart, so fun, so good. Roasted pepper, white bean and mozzarella salad: A 10-minute stunner, this easy dish from Hetty Lui McKinnon combines something from a jar (roasted red peppers), something canned (cannellini beans) and something cheesy (balls of milky mozzarella) into a gleefully easy, cooling meal — no chopping required. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
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Travel + Leisure
4 days ago
- General
- Travel + Leisure
I Stayed in Julia Child's Cottage in the South of France—What It's Like to Stay and Cook There
Wild dill, it turned out, looked like a tiny bristle, like a hairbrush for a mouse. Squatting in the grass, I plucked a green sprig with my thumb and forefinger. I chewed one end—that was bright, citrusy dill, alright. On my tray it went among its fellow herbs. I didn't usually sample random plants found underfoot, and up until this breezy May afternoon, I didn't know how dill looked in its natural habitat. But edible herbs grew all over this particular garden. On my way back to the cottage, foraging tray full, I also waded past rosemary, basil, oregano, mint, marjoram, thyme, and chives swaying their purple-flowered heads. The cottage was Julia Child's former home in Plascassier, a village in Provence, France, where she lived on and off from 1965 to 1992. It's named La Pitchoune ("the little one"), though she and her husband, Paul, affectionately called it La Peetch. I was staying there as a student at the Courageous Cooking School, a weeklong culinary course that's taken up residence. The kitchen and cooking school. It felt like stepping into a scrapbook of Julia's life: We cooked in her kitchen, where she developed recipes for "Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume 2." We unhooked pots and pans from her original pegboard wall. Her pine-green Dutch oven, its enamel worn from perhaps decades of coq au vin, sat heavy in the cabinet. So did her old set of soufflé pans with little heart-shaped handles. The walls were papered with evidence of a well-lived life: a packing list ("writing eqpt. & reading, bottle opener"); black-and-white photos of long, liquid lunches with friends; and typeset directions to the house addressed to the chef James Beard, who stayed there. This was where Julia and Paul Child cooked, drank, and hosted hungry friends. Now, it's where six of us stood, fresh from ransacking the garden and clutching our knives like nervous acolytes, about to be initiated into the Courageous Cooking School's particular brand of culinary heresy: that recipes were suggestions rather than scripture, and that cooking should be an adventure. Details from inside the kitchen and cooking school. Karen Yuan/Travel + Leisure The course operated on simplicity: no printed recipes, just a handful of students and a couple of instructors guiding us through the ingredients that made a dish work—salt, fat, acid, and aromatics. Our teachers were Kendall Lane, a sunny, Florida-born chef who previously worked in Michelin-starred kitchens, and Santana Caress Benitez, a Chopped champion with mise en place tattooed on her shoulder. The course's steward was Makenna Held, an American chef who'd bought the cottage in 2016 site unseen, inspired by French cooking much like her predecessor. They celebrated permission rather than precision: to taste as we went, to trust our senses. After all, Julia herself once famously dropped a potato pancake on the kitchen counter before scooping it back into a pan. ("You're alone in the kitchen—who's going to see?" She said in The French Chef episode.) Perfection was beside the point. The real lesson was learning to cook like someone who knew that dinner, like life, would go on even if the soufflé fell. I sorely needed that lesson. Though I was a big fan of eating , the irony was that I had a lot of anxiety around cooking, thanks to perfectionism and a respectful fear of sharp, pointy things. I ham-fisted recipes as if they were legal documents. The Courageous Cooking School felt like an intervention. Could a week at La Peetch help me loosen up and enjoy putting together a dish? My fellow students were regular folks from Vancouver, Chicago, and New Jersey; they worked in accounting, marketing, and health care. We were all drawn here by La Peetch's mystique and our love for a good home-cooked meal. Julia might have been gone, but she always did love a brave cook. As I tied on my orange apron, I half-expected to hear that distinctive warble from the next room. But the only sound was the snick of my knife against wood, beginning the day's first chop. We'd driven to nearby Cannes earlier in the day, where we'd been dropped at the entrance of the Marché Forville, given an allowance, and set loose to buy any produce—any!—that we felt like. The market assaulted the senses: Stalls bore ripe strawberries that threatened to dissolve into syrup at a touch; their perfume cut through the briny tang of just-landed sea bass; a fromager presented a wheel of Banon cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves. Emboldened, I splurged on donut peaches, melons, and stalks of white and purple asparagus that could double as medieval weapons. I'd never cooked with any of them before, but that felt like the reason to try them. My classmates came back with just-as-tentative expressions and baskets full of red currants, squash blossoms, and heads of frisée. Now, back in Julia's kitchen, I was clumsily cutting that giant frisée into chunks. The mission: Mix fruits and veggies from the morning's haul and make a no-rules raw salad—and have fun. Play with sources of fat and acid. Pile on any herbs and spices that pique your interest. 'So much good stuff can be put in there,' Lane said. So my classmates and I massaged black lime and wild mesquite into the bitter frisée. We paired textures like mad scientists, tossing in crunchy fennel, leek, and red onion, which were sharpened by apple cider vinegar and sweet paprika, which melted into silky strawberries, red currants, and donut peaches, which, in turn, lit up through silk chili, pink peppercorn, hazelnut bits, and a reckless shower of lemon zest. It was the wildest bowl of salad I'd ever made. Miraculously, it tasted sweet, tart, salty, and spiced all at once. We sampled as we went, adjusting acid, fat, and salt until the balance felt right. Each ingredient had a role. No dressing necessary—the layers were noisy with flavor. On our first day, Benitez had instructed us to bury our noses in the pantry's jars of single-origin spices and get curious about them. This included Urfa pepper with its raisin-like depth, verjus cinnamon, and licorice-like grains of paradise. I wasn't familiar with any of them and wouldn't easily find them back at home, and so recognized this for what it was: a rare chance to travel around the world through the flavors and try something new. So my classmates and I poured hearty amounts into our frisée. It was an exercise in cooking with abandon. 'There's always something fun or new to take away from an attempt, even if you don't meet your initial goal,' Lane told us. Through the rest of the week, I often found myself reaching for the zappy, smoky black lime we'd macerated the frisée in. I didn't know if I'd get access to the ingredient back home, but I resolved to bring more of those moments back into my cooking routine: adding something I usually never touched (maybe from the back of the fridge), biting down for a taste in progress, and raising my brows in shocked delight. We cooked in that sunny kitchen through the week, scoring duck breast, caramelizing onions, filleting fish, prepping artichokes, and whipping up mousse. Along the way, we tried to decode what made food sing, flipping ingredients and expectations. The course ranged across starters, entrées, and desserts, demystifying a slew of classic French dishes. When Lane showed us how to make soufflés, her first lesson was that their puffy domes always fall. It was just gravity. 'Release perfection from the start,' she encouraged. Later, she produced two towering soufflés out of the oven, perfectly quivering in Julia's heart-handled pans. Then they slumped, just as promised. We devoured them anyway. Lulu the house cat. Karen Yuan/Travel + Leisure In the evenings, we ate the fruits of our labor and lazed around the cottage. La Pitchoune is tucked off a sloping road, and each dusk did its best impression of a Provençal postcard. We'd list about the garden, where an enormous, centuries-old olive tree anchored beds of herbs, the rosemary planted by Julia's own hands. We'd visit the chicken coop, where Blanche, the white hen, deposited our daily eggs. Or check out the old water cistern, half-hidden in the golden light, where Julia and her cookbook co-author, Simone Beck, had dunked themselves, laughing, to escape the summer heat. We'd lie by the actual pool (a modern fixture). If we were lucky, Lulu, the house cat, sleek as a '60s starlet, would slip out to sit with us. We'd sip wine on the front patio under wisteria that cast lacy shadows over us. At dinner at the end of the week, Megan, a fellow student from Chicago, confessed she'd arrived burnt out on cooking. 'This week reminded me that I love it,' she said, scooping up the remains of a chocolate mousse we'd topped with berries and chilis. We had left the kitchen for the last time, but the lights were still on. Somewhere, Julia was probably tutting at the mousse we'd just murdered. But she'd also taught people to cook without apology. I thought of that wild frisée salad with its layers of sultry mesquite, puckery vinegar, and peppercorns, garnished with dill I'd picked myself. It had been weird, generous, and alive. There were no tidy endings here, no certificates of mastery—just the understanding that cooking was exploring, even and especially if it took you where you didn't mean to go. Some lessons, I guess, were meant to be tasted.
West Australian
5 days ago
- General
- West Australian
The New York Times recipe: Roasted white fish with lemony almondine
Sole meuniere is a time-honoured classic, the dish that made Julia Child fall in love with French cuisine, so the story goes. A combination of butter and lemon poured over sauteed fish, it's one of those sublimely simple recipes that needs no embellishment. Yet variations abound. Eggplant, grapes, cucumbers, even radishes and beets have elbowed their way into what is otherwise a minimalist recipe. Sensibly, the French culinary bible Larousse Gastronomique gives these frills a thumbs-down, declaring, 'This kind of ornament is quite useless and not at all in keeping with the recipe'. But there's one meuniere spin-off that has broken out of the pack, becoming a classic in its own right: fish almondine. It starts with the same basic preparation as meuniere. Fish fillets are dusted with flour and sauteed in butter (clarified or regular). More butter is added to the pan to brown, then a squeeze of lemon and pinch of minced parsley finish things off. To make almondine, you toss a handful of sliced almonds into the butter to toast just before the lemon juice. The almonds lend crunch and intensify the nuttiness of the brown butter. Usually, almondine is spooned over trout, but any fish works, particularly lean flaky fillets, which benefit from the richness of the sauce. For this recipe, I made two small but significant changes. Instead of sauteing the fillets, I roast them. This lets you skip the flour, lightening things ever so slightly. I also find roasting fish easier and more forgiving than sautéing, and nearly as fast. As a bonus, fish cooked in the oven also tends to be less, let's call it, aquatically aromatic than fish cooked on the stove. My second tweak is that, in addition to the lemon juice, I grate in some of the zest, which makes the flavour a few shades brighter and accentuates the citrus character. If you wanted to mix things up, you could substitute lime for the lemon, or use a Meyer lemon with its gentle perfume. I've even combined lemon and grapefruit, and it was lovely. A dish this simple calls for an equally bare-bones accompaniment, maybe some roasted or boiled potatoes next to a mound of steamed broccoli or green beans, which work perfectly with the nutty sauce. Or serve your fish almondine the way Julia Child had her meuniere — by itself, in all of its buttery, pristine glory. Fish almondine, a variation on a classic meuniere, combines toasted sliced almonds, brown butter and lemon juice as a sauce for sauteed, flour-dusted fillets. In this easy, weeknight-appropriate version, the fish is roasted, skipping the flour, for a more delicate result. Then, the sauce gets extra citrus intensity from a bit of grated lemon zest. Flaky white fish, or trout, is most traditional here. But the winning mix of brown butter, lemon and almonds is equally good on any kind of salmon, prawns, green beans, asparagus — even roast chicken. And it comes together in a flash. Recipe Melissa Clark 4 (170-225g) fillets flaky white fish, such as hake, cod or flounder, or trout Fine sea or table salt and black pepper 7 tbsp unsalted butter ½ cup sliced almonds 1 lemon, zest finely grated, then fruit halved 1 tbsp minced chives, plus more for garnish Step 1 Heat oven to 230C. Place fish on a rimmed baking tray and season fillets lightly with salt and black pepper on both sides. Cut 1 tablespoon butter into small pieces and scatter on top of the fish. Roast for 7 to 11 minutes, or until the fish is tender and cooked through. (Thin fillets will cook more quickly than thick ones.) Step 2 While fish roasts, in a large frying pan, melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Cook, swirling the pan, until the foam subsides and the butter turns a deep nut brown, 3 to 7 minutes. (Watch carefully so that it doesn't burn.) Step 3 Add almonds to the pan and turn off the heat; the nuts will immediately start to brown. Toss them in the hot butter until golden, about 2 minutes, turning the heat back on to low if the nuts need a little more colour. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into the pan and stir in half of the grated lemon zest, the chives, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Taste and add more lemon juice and salt, if needed. Step 4 Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with more chives and lemon zest. Serve warm, with the remaining lemon half on the side for squeezing. (You can cut it into wedges, if you like.) Serves 4 Total time: 20 minutes This article originally appeared in The New York Times . © 2023 The New York Times Company
Eater
6 days ago
- Eater
A Fresh Santa Barbara Guide to New and Old-School Restaurants
It's challenging to find a better year-round destination like Santa Barbara, with its mountains that hug the region's curvy coastline, mild temperatures, history, and multitude of places to eat. An easy two-hour drive from Los Angeles and a stunning three-hour ride on Amtrak's Coast Starlight train, the Central Coast possesses some of the state's oldest restaurants, including the 137-year-old Cold Spring Tavern in the hills above Santa Barbara, where it serves smoky Santa Maria-style barbecue. In the last year, newer operators have also emerged in Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, and their posh neighbor, Montecito. With more openings on the horizon, the result is clear: with local produce and seafood, Santa Barbara remains one of the best places to eat in all of California. This guide celebrates Santa Barbara's longstanding restaurants that have fed locals and tourists for decades, along with recent additions that have emerged as excellent places to dine. Eater produced a guide on how to spend 24 hours in Santa Barbara. For a map of restaurants both young and old, click here. Joe's Cafe. Mona Holmes Joe's Cafe Open for: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Price range: $$ Open since 1928, Joe's Cafe resides on a central corner on Downtown Santa Barbara's State Street. It's one of those joints that opens at 7:30 a.m. for pancakes, omelettes, and huevos rancheros. For lunch and dinner, opt for the classic Cobb salad, lasagna or ravioli, a New York steak with garlic butter, and an open-faced tri-tip sandwich. Daily specials can include beef stroganoff, pot pies, and chile rellenos. Cocktails are available at all times of day. Know before you go: Breakfast runs until 11 a.m. Tee-Off Restaurant & Lounge Open for: Dinner Price range: $$ The Tee-Off Restaurant & Lounge is Santa Barbara's kitschy golf-themed steakhouse, lounge, and bar. This is not a dive bar-restaurant. Tee-Off is a full-on hole-in-the-wall that prepares an excellent grilled chop, whether filet mignon, rack of lamb, or bone-in ribeye. It also serves fish and chips, lobster, Alaskan crab legs, and cheesecake. Diners can sip a classic martini from the 1950s (Tee-Off opened in 1956), an Old Fashioned, or something from Tee-Off's extensive collection of single malt scotch. The vibe is old-school and fun, right on down to the leather accents on the bar and sparkly string lights. Know before you go: The prime rib pot pie is an underrated dish worth ordering. La Super Rica Taqueria Open for: Lunch, Dinner Price range: $ This endlessly charming taqueria is a Santa Barbara local legend, not least of which because Julia Child proclaimed it as one of her favorite places to eat on the Central Coast. With La Super Rica Taqueria's trippy Caribbean blue awnings and makeshift chalkboard menu, this 45-year-old restaurant continues to delight locals and travelers with a vibrant array of Mexican dishes served with supple homemade corn tortillas and tangy salsas. Don't leave without an order of the Super-Rica Especial, a plate of al pastor blanketed with rajas and molten cheese, and the queso de cazuela, which merges fresh tomato salsa with a melty fondue base. Know before you go: The spot is cash-only, so come prepared. Ca' Dario Open for: Lunch, Dinner Price range: $$ - $$$ Santa Barbara's local chain, Ca' Dario, began in 1997 when it became one of the first Downtown restaurants that served a Northern Italian menu. Find fresh local produce throughout chef Dario Furlati's menu, especially the salads and appetizers, including a wonderful bruschetta, various egg dishes, panini sandwiches, and imported pasta for classics like pappardelle bolognese. For dinner, most of the lunch menu applies with an expanded secondi course: Think grilled rack of lamb with shaved roasted garlic, or a 20-ounce grass-fed veal short loin sauced in rosemary and sage butter. Know before you go: Ca' Dario's has locations in Downtown Santa Barbara, Montecito, the Santa Barbara Public Market food hall, and Goleta. Silvers Omakase Open for: Dinner Price range: $$$ Right in Downtown Santa Barbara's Funk Zone is the Michelin one-starred restaurant Silvers Omakase. Chef and owner Lennon Silvers Lee (his older brother is Sushi by Scratch and Pasta Bar founder Phillip Frankland Lee) opened this hotspot in 2024, where he makes good use of the local seafood for his tasting menu, which might be nigiri, hamachi, or sliced bluefin tuna. There are only 10 seats available in this intimate space, which sold out 1,110 reservations one month before Silvers even opened. Know before you go: Reservations are required, and the omakase is $235 per guest. Jonesy's Fried Chicken Open for: Lunch, Early Dinner Price range: $ Slightly north of Santa Barbara off the 101 is Jonesy's Fried Chicken in Goleta. The casual restaurant opened in mid-2024, where its Southern-inspired menu showcases deep-fried buttermilk wings and chicken tenders, buttermilk biscuits with honey cayenne butter, chicken and waffles, fried mac and cheese balls, and a Korean chicken sandwich, but done Nashville-style. Banana pudding and an ice cream sandwich are for dessert. Know before you go: This is a mostly daytime spot and open until 8 p.m. Tina's Pizza. Katie Katz Photography Tina's Pizza Open for: Lunch, Dinner Price range: $$ Bettina owners Rachel Greenspan and Brendan Smith debuted their Carpinteria outlet, Tina's Pizza, in late May 2025. It's located inside the charming Linden Square, one block away from Little Dom's Seafood. It serves a pared-down menu from the original location with whole pies, sourdough loaves, wine selections, and some grab-and-go items for those camping at the nearby Carpinteria State Beach. Know before you go: Conduct a lap around the food hall before settling into a table. Coal-fired chicken and spicy rigatoni a la vodka at Marisella. Wonho Frank Lee Marisella Open for: Dinner Price range: $$$ Acclaimed chef Danny Grant debuted Marisella in late June 2025. Derived from the Latin term for 'star of the sea,' it embodies what one expects from a California restaurant perched on a stunning seaside cliff. Grant's resume includes opening Chicago's Maple & Ash, but here at Marisella, he uses the freshest fish catches of the day and produce from local farmers. It's an expansive space inside the Ritz-Carlton Bacara that overlooks the Pacific Ocean with one of the West Coast's best unobstructed views. Sample coastal California cooking with prawns with salsa verde and a Calabrian emulsion, raw oysters, roasted California lamb rack, and a stunning chicken piccata. Know before you go: Reservations are not required, but highly recommended. Eater LA All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
