Krik's Picks

Sorry, I got distracted after writing two posts on using leftovers creatively instead of throwing them away. (Click here for #1 and here for #2 .) But this one is the one I’m most proud of. It started with a turkey. When I make turkey, I almost always grill it. After dinner, my wife and I strip the carcass of the remaining meat. Then I break down the carcass and freeze the bones, usually in two bags. I use the carcasses later to make turkey broth for any recipe that calls for chicken broth. I use this recipe from Bon Appetit/Epicurious as my starting point. (The recipe calls for roasting the bones. But since I grill my turkey over charcoal, I find that the carcass already has a nice smoky flavor and depth of flavor, so I skip that step.) After the broth was done simmering, I strained it into freezer containers (for future use). What remained were the bones, now pretty well bare of any meat, and the soggy celery, onions, and carrots. I did toss most of that stuff. But I decided to...

The heaviest snowstorm of the season (so far) almost spoiled our plans to have dinner with friends. We had a reservation at an Italian restaurant in Minneapolis. Then we planned to drive to Parma for an after dinner drink and to listen to the sounds of Benny Weinbeck who performs there every Saturday night. With the roads covered with packed snow and ice, we wanted to minimize the amount of driving. So we changed our dinner reservation to Parma and spent the whole evening there. Good decision! Parma 8200 is part of the D’Amico family of restaurants . I admit that I’m a fan. Their restaurants are reliably good. My favorite is Café Lurcat (which I’ve written about before; click here ). But even though Parma is quite close to our house, we’d never eaten there previously. To start with, we had a little trouble deciding on wine. Parma has a good wine list with many choices at reasonable prices. The trouble was, we couldn’t find one that appealed to everyone at the table. Our server w...

I don’t really have a good excuse for not trying Butcher & The Boar sooner. It’s been highly acclaimed since it opened, and I’ve been curious. Finally, after an evening out with some friends, we expressed mutual interest in trying it. That was fine, but then came the challenge of finding a weekend that worked for all of us, and when we could get a reservation. The place is popular. Hopping busy. It wasn’t easy getting a reservation. We finally picked a date 6 weeks out, and that worked. You could say it was worth the wait. I’d say, “I wish we’d gotten there sooner.” As you’d expect, the menu is very ‘meat centric.’ Having said that, I noted that they do have a ‘Waters’ section of the menu with fish and seafood. Several of the fish and seafood items looked interesting, and I considered ordering the barbecued octopus. But in the end, we stuck to meat. All of the publicity about Butcher & The Boar mention the smoked beef rib. It’s huge, and it’s expensive. We decided we cou...

At the end of January, my wife and I spent several days in Los Angeles. We actually were in Westwood Village, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica. We had a great time, and I’ll be writing posts on several of the restaurants that we went to. But here’s a quick overview of the vacation, with comments on the things we did. First of all, I have to admit that I’m not particularly fond of Los Angeles. We had fun. But it wouldn’t be our first choice for a January vacation. I had a board meeting for Mazon (the anti-hunger advocacy organization). So the city and the neighborhood where we stayed was determined by proximity to the board meeting location. That said, I couldn’t imagine a better location. We were right by the UCLA campus and it was easy to find great restaurants, interesting museums, fun entertainment, and nice walking paths. I have to admit that I had the impression that Los Angeles was not a walker-friendly city. But I was wrong. Our hotel was about a mile from M...