The Larchmont Larder Blog

Chef Michael climbed a ladder on his day off and picked fresh tangerines. He’ll be calling on his Swiss upbringing to make delicious, tart tangerine marmalade sweetened by in-season blood oranges. The marmalade is available in our front case and is delicious with your favorite breakfast bread, as a condiment with savory meats and vegetables or just eaten on a spoon right out of the container!

One of the very nicest things about life is the way

we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, from Pavarotti, My Own Story

Is there anything more comforting than a roast chicken, served simply with sides of fresh vegetables, some sort of potato, maybe a salad of mixed greens and a home-made vinaigrette?  The Larder has fresh, roasted chickens every day as well as all the fixings to go with them. You can stop by with the kids after you pick them up from school or after work, for a comfort meal. We doubt there will be any, but any leftovers can be used for lunch the next day!

RECIPE FOR A SALAD

To make this condiment, your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
And, lastly, o’er the flavored compound toss
A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
‘T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate can not harm me, I have dined to-day!

– Sydney Smith, Public Domain

We thought that along with wishing you the happiest of New Years and expressing our gratitude to each of you for making The Larder one of your favorite eating spots, we’d leave you with some of these fun and wise quotes about food. Because, what else is worth more than the celebration of a new year filled with good food, family, friends and laughter?

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are — Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being. — Franz Kafka

Sir, respect your dinner: idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life happier if you do.  - William Makepeace Thackeray

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. – Mark Twain

Now Christmas comes, ’tis fit that we
should feast and sing, and merry be:
Keep open house, let fidlers play.
A fig for cold, sing care away;
And may they who thereat repine,
On brown bread and on small beer dine.

– Virginia Almanack, 1766

All of us here at the Larder wish our loyal customers and friends blessed holidays and a happy new year. We thank you for your support this past year and hope to see you soon!

I know that tuppence would not buy much today, but when I am tired and cold and hungry, poor or rich, I would rather drink a bowl of hot broth than confront any meal ever devised. And I feel confident that I would be a useful provider in times of hardship, for it is challenging, even when I need not scratch for tuppence, to steep the last drop of nourishing and real satisfaction in making an artful good soup from things usually tossed away: the washed tops of celery stalks, stems of parsley, skeletons of fowl, bones of animals. 

The great writer and gourmand, M.F.K. Fisher, wrote those words in her brilliant With Bold Knife and Fork over forty years ago, but who would deny the simple pleasure of a perfect chicken stock? As a base for soups and sauces, Chef Michael’s Chicken Stock is both simple and intensely flavorful. You could heat it up as is and sip with a loaf of crusty bread and butter and a fresh green salad. You could also chop up some winter squash, a few different vegetables, some noodles, herbs and chunks of chicken, combine them with the stock and have an instant family dinner. If you’re really ambitious, make a quick biscuit dough and drop spoonfuls onto the bubbling soup. Chicken and dumplings!

The Larder has containers of Chef Michael’s Chicken Stock available in the front cooler of the store. Pick one up and experiment at home with it, make a soup for a friend or just heat it up and eat!

For simple living, when one is alone or with children or other people who must sleep sweetly and then rise to face school or jobs, the supper of our European forebears is a good one, and when one feels jaded from too many pressures it seems even more beneficent: all one wants to eat of a plain soup, some bread or toast, perhaps, then a compote of cooded fruits or a little custard if indicated by habit or hunger, and then bed — (M.F.K. Fisher)

I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?

The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.

– Alice from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Fanciful children’s tales aside, in honor of our first blog post, The Larchmont Larder introduces, or as Alice might say,  re-introduces you to mushrooms, those tasty little and sometimes big, earthy, tantalizing roots of the forest. The mushroom is featured prominently all over our website and our store (check out our chandelier for the most beautiful glass mushrooms you’ve ever seen), and our logo, of course, is crowned with a delicate one.  Chef Michael says that we chose the mushroom  because mushrooms are used in every cuisine and there is also something mysterious about them. Some are poisonous and all are different from all the other vegetables, if they are even considered a vegetable at all.  In Japan they are considered the fifth flavor (Umami) while in the west we have only 4 (sweet, sour, salty and bitter).

As the dog days of summer linger (and here in Los Angeles hit us with a wilting heat after a fairly mild summer), we can look forward to foraging for, tasting and pondering, like Alice, the mushroom. We can also cook a delicious Mushroom Soup.

Mushroom Soup with Sherry and Tarragon

1/2 cup shallots

2 cloves garlic, peeled

3 T butter or olive oil

1 cup shitake mushrooms

1 cup oyster mushrooms

1 cup cremini mushrooms

2 quarts Chicken Stock (available at the Larder!)

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup Sherry

2 sprigs Tarragon

Additional mushrooms for garnish

Chopped Parsley

Slice shallots and garlic and cook in oil or butter (or both) in a soup for about five minutes until translucent. Add cleaned mushrooms, cut into pieces (you can use any variety) and cook for a few minutes. Add stock, salt and pepper. Bring soup to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes. Add sherry and cook an additional 5 minutes. Add tarragon and puree the soup in a blender. Check for seasoning and garnish with additional sauteed mushrooms and chopped parsley.