Ann Mah's newsletter / Nov 2017
November 2017 newsletter
Hello!
This past month has been quite a whirlwind, what with a family trip to Montreal and my pressing cookbook deadline, which I managed to meet WHILE hanging out with my preschooler during her week-long school vacation (turns out you can accomplish a lot between 8pm - 2am!). I even made pâté de campagne in the Instant Pot! I also went apple-picking and took a flash trip to New York City to talk at Soho House as part of a panel on New York Times Footsteps, after which we all ended up at a Spanish dive bar swilling cheap red wine and eating complimentary patatas bravas doused in a "secret sauce" of Tabasco. The next morning I misjudged the subway efficiency, my E train turned into an F, and I had to sprint from 6th Avenue to 9th Avenue in six minutes in order to catch my bus back to DC. Apologies to the woman sitting next to me on whom I sweated all over.
Now I'm happy for a little breather before getting swept into the holidays! Here's what else I've been up to:
What I've been eating
Poutine at Ma Poule Mouilée (Montreal)
As I mentioned, we just made a trip to Montreal for my cousin's wedding. I was dying to eat poutine, the local specialty of fries, cheese curds, and gravy. Thanks to my friend, Marie Asselin (Food Nouveau), I experienced poutine nirvana at Ma Poule Mouillée is a Portuguese take-out joint specializing in grilled meat; their poutine includes shreds of moist chicken and an amazing tangy hot sauce. As Marie says, "[It's] a great example of the kind of "fusion" contemporary cuisine happening right now... of what a chef (often born and raised in Montreal) with an immigrant heritage will do combining both of his sources of inspiration. When done well, it's amazingly delicious!"
Apple pie with cheddar crust
Though I'm not super fond of sweet savory foods, I love savory sweets. Does that make sense? Anyway, apple pie with a cheddar crust is my idea of heaven, and when we went apple-picking and brought home 10lbs of fruit, I knew exactly what I wanted to bake with it. I used this recipe for the crust (it's been my standby for years), and this one for the filling. The result was fantastic, though there was a bit of a soggy bottom, which I guess means I'll have to try it again, darn it! (Seriously, if anyone has any soggy-bottom-prevention tips, please email me.)
What I've been reading
I spotted this "What Would Julia Do" dish towel in a shop in my neighborhood and had to have it. You can get your own here.
New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark has written forty (40!!!) cookbooks – and this article spills the beans on how she gets it done. (Btw, she doesn't eat dinner with her kid and neither do we. Phew, I feel better getting that off my chest!)
A new book of Paul Child's photographs depicts his wife, Julia, looking like a total babe. View pics here, and the book, France is a Feast, here.
This piece from McSweeney's made me laugh 'til I cried: Your Children's Bedtime Routine: Fantasy vs Reality
Want to know the secret to Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur genius grant recipient Viet Thanh Nguyen's "overnight" success? It took twenty years: "Part of being a writer is about endurance," he says. "The ability to withstand rejection, and neglect, and obscurity, and all of that." Interview at Electric Literature
I'm excited about Kids Like Us, a new novel about a teenage boy on the autism spectrum who spends a summer in France and falls for a girl he thinks is the real-life reincarnation of a character from Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Even if the author, Hilary Reyl, wasn't one of my favorite people, I would be waiting impatiently for November 14 when the book publishes. (Preorder here!)
The 2018 Kauai Writers' Festival is offering master classes with some truly great writers, including Christina Baker Kline and Jane Smiley. Plus did I mention it's in Kauai? More info here.
If you've ever dreamed of buying and renovating a Parisian apartment, you will love David Lebovitz's new book L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home. (Spoiler: There are a lot of disasters!)
A bientôt!
Thank you for reading! In the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to baking more pies, especially since I just bought some ingenious leaf-shaped crust cutters (like these). I'll be back in December, and if you'd like to subscribe to this newsletter, you can sign up here. Have a lovely month!
Amitiés,
Ann