Turkey day has come and gone and now it is on to the gift-giving season. Before we start talking holiday roasts and celebrating miracles, let’s take a look back at what our visiting chefs had to offer our guests throughout the month of November. From soul food to plant-based, they had plenty to offer us, and we’re so grateful for them coming by to grace us with their knowledge.

Tip 1: Add Some Spice to Your Wine

When Bad Company bassist-turned-chef Paul Cullen came up from Delaware for our Italian Holiday Feast, he dragged along a bunch of fun things. Homemade lasagna was probably the highlight. It’s certainly an easy dish to share with a larger group. Additionally, he broke out mulled wine with his private label bottle. Want a quality start to a holiday dinner? Grab some cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, orange peel, and a medium-bodied, fruit-forward red, throw it in a pot over low heat, and serve once warm. Paul garnished this one with grilled pears.

Tip 2: Perfect Pasta Pairing

Making pasta is easy peasy. For Michael Vincent Ferreri and his team at Res Ipsa, it is a daily occurrence. These guys are machines at it. The key to a great pasta dish, Michael says, is pairing the right shape with the right sauce. Tubular pasta is great for scoping up the hearty ones. Pestos? Pick up orecchiette, fusilli, or any of the other shapes that have some spiral action or that are scoop-like.

Tip 3: Give It A Salty Sweater

Roasting roots can be a tough endeavor. Your biggest asset is patience. For a quick and easy cooking method that not only extracts solid flavor but makes for a simple preparation, go for a salt crust. Lucio Palazzo, culinary director for the Sojurn Restaurant Group and their upcoming restaurant Sor Ynez, packed celery root with one and says you can do with beets as well. Take 1 egg white, beat it thoroughly until aerated and mix it with 2 cups of salt. Use this paste to encapsulate your veg of choice and bake for 45 minutes at 400 degrees until fork tender.

Tip 4: Simple Desserts Make for Excellent Canvases

Not everyone can cook in the same kitchen as another person. Even rarer is a joint dish that highlights two people’s strengths let alone their cultural backgrounds. Enter Diana Widjojo from Hardena and Joncarl Lachman of Noord and Winkel. They dubbed it a “colonial collaboration.” This could mainly be found in their dessert – klappertaart. It is a Dutch-influenced Indonesian bread pudding with shaved coconut and coconut cream. It’s kind of hard to go wrong baking bread, egg, milk, sugar, and fruit. For the colder weathers, bread pudding is a warm, filling dessert. Because the base of the dessert is simply egg, milk, sugar, and bread, it can easily be adapted to utilize whatever flavor profile you want.

Tip 5: Preserve, Don’t Discard

It’s always a pleasure to have Malik Ali stop by. Guests can always expect a flow of conversation and plenty of anecdotes from whatever family member he brings along as his sous chef. For his most recent class, Malik used two forms of preserved vegetables as garnish for plates. He says that these are super easy to make and also, a great way to not let things go to waste. Not to mention, your friends might be impressed if you have a lineup of fruit or vegetable mostarda, jam and agrodolce. For this simple tomato-thyme reduction, he took plum tomatoes, diced them, added them with the sprigs of time into a pot of water, sugar, and lemon, and proceeded to let simmer for an hour on low. Try it with the next set of apples that haven’t been used right away.

We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and be sure to check out our Black Friday sale.