“Somebody help me.” I heard his low voice before I saw him, up from our vantage point on the ski lifts. It was a skier down on the slopes below us. He was barreling straight down the hill and picking up speed as he went along. Was he for real? We watched as he sailed past all the other skiers, past the bottom of the hill, past the entrance to the ski lifts, past the snow. He flew five metres deep into the parking lot before finally landing flat in the gravel face-down. Ouch. This was my first time up on the ski lifts, and my first weekend skiing. That did not seem to bode well. 

I was sharing the ski lift with my niece, who imparted the first of her skiing wisdom: if you’ve lost control of your skis, just fall over sideways. It beats hitting a tree or falling off a cliff. Or in this case, landing flat in the middle of the Nashoba Valley carpark.

Beginner slope on day 1

It was our first-ever skiing trip. Together with my three nieces, we’d signed up for skiing classes.  And to those who think that adults learn at the same rate as children, I know better now - that's definitely not the case. I was obviously the slow one in our class. We all started off at the same level, but by the second day, my two teenaged nieces had completed the black diamond run, while I was still on the beginner slope with my elementary-school going niece. (And she was clearly the superior skier out of the two of us.) It was with some trepidation when she declared that she was ready for the intermediate slope. But off we went. 

So I did tumble a few times on the intermediate slopes. But the snow was soft, and so the falls hurt only my pride. On one run, I didn’t fall once at all. Incredible. 

Skiing was daunting, but I had a clear game plan. Firstly, there's falling down, which breaks the momentum and lets you reset yourself. Falling is not an adverse outcome, it's a tactic. Easy-peasy. Secondly, if nothing else, you can always just take off your skis and walk down. And well, I’m a little shamed to say, I had to do that. But it wasn’t my fault. On my last run, one of my ski broke, a fact that I learnt after a Good Samaritan who stopped to lend a hand had pointed out that the wooden layer of my ski had snapped clean through. So I did end up having to hoof it back down the mountain :(. Was this the reason why I was having difficulties skiing after all? That’s my explanation and I’m sticking to it. He mentioned that the rental ski place would probably give me a hard time for the broken skis (they did.) But the rental shop didn’t really have much of a case, since I hadn’t done anything stupid with the skis. They did replace them after some grumbling, though it was close to the end of my session and I was pretty much all worn out anyway.

And we saw snow! Despite it being one of the warmest winters on record for Boston, it started snowing within hours of me reaching Boston. Our favourite supper spot was Russell House Tavern, and we went back a few times over the two weeks that I was there. The tavern was voted to serve the thirty-third best pizza in the US, and while I don’t know about that for certain, we did have an incredible mushroom goat cheese pizza with some remarkably fragrant mushroom slices on the thin-crust pizza. But I’ll say what kept us coming back were their happy hour oysters, which was $1 apiece and which we washed down with plenty of beer. There’s something especially intoxicating about their concoction of vinegar and diced cucumber that I applied liberally on top of the oysters (and did I detect shallots and lime juice?). But with oysters as fresh as theirs, we also ate plenty without any condiments too.  

From Russell House Tavern, we usually head over to Tasty Burger for a second supper - hot salty tatter tots and fresh onion rings. It’s located just a short walk down the street, and I adore the interior design: it looks a little like Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe from Archie comics. After a series of cold beers and oysters, fried food was the perfect after-meal snack.

Yardhouse, Poke Nachos

Another place that we love was Yardhouse, another restaurant that was worth a repeat visit over my short weeks in Boston. There wasn’t a single bad dish, from their fried cheese curds to their calamari and wings. But the standout was the Poke Nachos, an Asian inspired version of nachos made from  fried wonton skin and topped with diced sashimi, avocado, spring onion, nori flakes, jalapeños and sriracha mayo.  

We also headed down to Boston Seaport, which was a place that I missed out on the previous time I was there. Twenty years ago, back when my sister and brother-in-law were students studying in Boston, the area had been little more than a collection of warehouses. But time had brought astounding progress to the district, and it‘s now a bustling neighbourhood overlooking the harbour, with modern theatres, restaurants and museums. Luckily, not everything from the old neighbourhood disappeared. Yankee Lobster, a casual eatery that they frequented 20 years ago, remained, and we had their hot buttered lobster rolls for lunch one day. 

And naturally, we did a lot of shopping and baking. We drove up to New Hampshire to Merrimack Outlets, where I had a grand time browsing through the stores. My favourite thing to do in a new country is to check out their supermarkets. We also frequented Target and Costco, and visited Stop & Shop for some of those freshly-steamed lobsters that I enjoyed so much on my last trip. Boston is a coastal city, and I wanted to have my fill of shellfish and octopuses, even if I have to cook them myself. 

Asian-American cuisine (General Tso's chicken and Orange Chicken is pictured here) is my go-to meal at the outlets. Don’t knock it until you try it, they’re pretty incredible. I routinely bring beer along on our shopping trips, which turns our outlet-mall lunches from an after-thought into a delightful meal.

During my WSET classes, we’d learnt about the wines produced in the good ol’ US of A. The first time I walked into Total Wine, I might have gone overboard a little. It’s a sprawling store filled with thousands of different wine bottles, and the aisles were not just organised by grape varieties, but also by their countries of origin. Our two weeks were a crash course in the wines of Napa, Sonoma, Los Carneros, Oregon and Santa Barbara. We paired these wines with some recipes that I’d been experimenting with. I dusted off my old roast pork belly recipe to confirm that my technique for crackly skin and tender meat was just as good as I remembered, even with Trader Joe’s premix spices. There’s a couple of versions of Boeuf Bourguignon, and a delightful coq au vin. 

The sweet wines that we bought were served with desserts (duh!). We bought more terrific cannolis from Mike's Pastry. I baked several batches of cookies, including Stella Park’s Levain cookies and the cookies that King Arthur declared Recipe of the Year in 2023. We made basque cheesecakes (yes, plural!) and David Lebovitz's pecan pie.

Stella Park’s Levain cookies

Picture-perfect pancakes for breakfast. But I can't take much credit for them; these were Krusteaz instant-mix pancakes.

We talked too much, laughed too much, and generally ate too much. We didn’t fit in whale-spotting, but that's fine, for we already had everything we needed to have a whale of a time right here. 

But let me get back to this Basque Cheesecake. After two less-than-stellar results from other recipes, I finally struck the proverbial gold the third time around. The top is a deep burnished mahogany surrounded by a ring of deep brown without burnt spots. The inside, soft and creamy. 

This cheesecake is chilled for 8 hours before serving, making it the perfect make-ahead dessert for a party.  For us, I finished baking it by afternoon, and stuck it in the fridge. I had planned to turn in early for the night, but somehow, time slipped on by. When midnight came around, we were still sitting around the kitchen, drinking wine and chatting. So I pulled the cheesecake out of the fridge, and we shared a single perfect slice for supper. 

Basque Cheesecake Recipe

Adapted from RecipeTin Eats 

Makes a 7-inch cheesecake 

The cheesecake, baked until deeply-bronzed, is rich and flavourful. My favourite New York cheesecake recipe from Stella Park uses goat cheese as a secret ingredient to booster a cheesecake's richness further. For my subsequent attempts, I'll be interested to see how adding 100g of goat cheese would do for the recipe. 

INGREDIENTS

450g (2 blocks) cream cheese, at room temperature 

120g granulated sugar 

1/4 + 1/2 cups heavy cream

2.5 tbsp all-purpose flour 

0.5 tsp vanilla bean extract

3 large eggs (about 1/2 cup), at room temperature

STEPS

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Set a rack in the middle of the oven.

2. Crumple up a 15-inch piece of baking paper, then smooth out the baking paper to be used to line the inside of a cake pan. If one piece of baking paper isn't enough to cover the sides of cake pan, you may need a second piece of a 15-inch baking paper, set perpendicularly to the first piece of baking paper. Fold the baking paper(s) outwards over the rim of the cake pan. 

3. In a large bowl, whisk cream cheese on medium speed until smooth, for about 2 minutes. Add sugar and continue to whisk on low speed for 10 seconds.

4. In a medium-sized bowl, combine 1/4 cup of heavy cream and flour until a smooth paste forms. Slowly drizzle in the remaining half cup of cream while continuing to stir until just combined. Then add vanilla. 

5. Drizzle the cream mixture into the cream cheese bowl while whisking on low speed, just until combined. Add the eggs until mixed in, then stop whisking. 

6. Pour the cheesecake batter into the cake pan. Gently rap the cake pan against a cloth set on a table to bring any air bubbles to the surface, and then pop the air bubbles with a spoon or butter knife.  

7. Bake until the surface is a deep golden brown, or about 30-32 minutes (although for some, it may take much longer. Go by visual cues instead of fixed timings. It should look browned but not burnt.) Rotate the baking sheet midway to ensure even browning. The centre will still be wobbly - that's alright!

8. Remove the cheesecake from the oven at let cool in the cake pan for 2 hours at room temperature. (The cheesecake will sink and lose height as it cools.) Refrigerate the cheesecake uncovered for at least 8 hours before serving. The cheesecake can be served straight from the fridge, or be allowed to bring up to near room temperature. 

There's nothing quite as delightful as pulling out a perfectly-baked tray of cookies from the oven as its rich aroma fills the kitchen, or biting down into a still-warm cookie. 

That said, I don't often bake cookies. Cookies are baked in batches, and I'm hampered by my stovetop oven that is half the size of regular ovens. I don't have the required patience to pull baking trays in and out every 15 minutes all day.

When I had the chance to visit my sister and use her full-sized oven, these huge chocolate chip cookies, the winner of King Arthur's Recipe of the Year in 2023, was the first recipe on my list. These cookies are good. Like, crazy good, and the best cookie that I've had. They're huge and soft, and tasted like how I remembered my childhood Subway cookies to be like. I was having Anton Ego-esque flashbacks.  

These pictures don't quite capture the cookies' hugeness. This (below) is a half-size sheet pan is 18"x13", which fits about 5 cookies. My regular home oven fits quarter-size sheet pans (9"x13"), which probably means I would be baking 2 cookies each time, if I try. (Spoiler alert: I won’t). 

At the end of the trip, it was hard for me to leave her house, partially because I know I won't be having any more of these beauties, not until at least after I upgrade my oven. But when I do, this King Arthur recipe remains at the top of my list.

I usually adapt recipes to include clarifications or to streamline some steps, and post my revised recipes here. But for this recipe, I decided I’ll just link to the original recipe on the King Arthur website. For sure, this recipe has many steps, far more than other cookie recipes. Some of the steps can be convoluted. (Yes, I would rest the dough for the full 72-hour. I baked two batches: one at the 24-hour mark, and one at the full 72-hour. The latter was lovelier, with a nuttier, almost-caramelised accent.) But each step was written in a clear manner, and I wouldn't dare to mess with any of the instructions in case the quality suffers. 

For on that sunny winter morning, what came out of the oven was pure perfection. 

I took some time off work and headed over to Boston to spend time with my sister’s  family. It’s winter now in mid-February, and we spent some time doing some winter sports like skiing and ice-skating (more on that in a later post!)

Boeuf Bourguignon à la Julia Child

The instructions are very finicky (in one part of the recipe, you set the simmering beef pot from the stove into the oven for 4 minutes, take it out to stir, return it to the oven for 4 more minutes, then take it back to the stove to continue adding more ingredients and cooking). I tried my best to stay true to the instructions, even though I like stews with a lot more aromatics (like carrots!). There’s a lot of emotional attachments with Julia Child’s recipes, and people take umbrage if you veer too far off the original version. 

Coq au Vin

At the risk of being controversial, I didn’t like the final results either. Most other (modern) recipes which are a riff off this are less beholden to tradition and incorporate modern techniques to give better results. Perhaps the old way isn't always the best way, especially for a frazzled home cook on his holiday. And so I scrapped my original plans for a Beef Bourguignon post, and when I tried this fantastic Coq au Vin from RecipeTinEats, I decided this was far better to write about. I may revisit Beef Bourguignon at a later date, but for now, I’m luxuriating in this stew. 

Coq au Vin

Adapted from RecipeTin Eats

INGREDIENTS

8 pieces of chicken, bone-in and skin-on (or 1 whole chicken, divided)

750 ml / 3 cups red wine 

3/4 tsp salt (cooking/kosher salt, or 1/2 tsp table salt)

1/2 tsp black pepper

4 tbsp olive oil 

400g / 14oz white mushrooms , halved (quartered if large) 

150g / 5oz bacon slices, cut into 1-inch 

16 pearl onions or picking onions 

3 garlic cloves , finely minced

7 tbsp all-purpose flour 

2 tbsp tomato paste

750 ml / 3 cups beef stock

3 thyme sprigs (or 1 tsp dried thyme)

STEPS

1. Place chicken and red wine in a ziplock bag. Marinate overnight in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours (to a maximum of 24 hours).

2. When ready to cook, empty the red wine into a small pot. Place chicken pieces on a baking tray lined with paper towels and pat dry. Season chicken with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper.

3. Bring the pot with the wine to a boil over medium-high heat, until reduced by half. Using a fine sieve, skim off impurities that you see in the red wine. Remove from heat when wine is reduced by half, and then set aside.

4. Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F (160°C fan).

5. Heat olive oil in a large, oven-safe pot over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add chicken thighs and sear until golden brown on both sides. (The red wine will stain the chicken in a darker shade than usual.) Remove chicken from the pot. I return the chicken to the tray that I dried the chicken on (sans paper towels), since the partially-cooked chicken is meant to be cooked further. 

6. In the same pot, add bacon and sauté until golden, about 3 minutes. Then remove from the pot. (I store the bacon on the same tray holding the chicken.)

7. Add mushrooms and sauté until browned, for 5 minutes. Remove from pot, and place the mushroom in a separate bowl away from the chicken/bacon.

8. In the same pot, sauté onions for about 5 minutes, until browned. Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add more olive oil if needed to prevent sticking. Remove aromatics from the pan (I add them to the bowl with the mushrooms.)

9. At this point, the pot should still have a layer of oil. Add flour all at once, stir and cook for a couple of minutes to make a blonde roux. Then add tomato paste and combine, cooking for 2 minutes (This makes what is commonly called a brick roux.)

10. In a slow drizzle, pour in the stock and the reduced wine while stirring to combine the glaze with the roux. This also deglazes the fond on the pan. When the liquid has been incorporated, then return the chicken, bacon, mushroom, onion and garlic to the pot. Add thyme. 

11. Return the pot to a simmer, then cover and transfer to oven and braise for about 45 minutes. Remove from oven, taste the stew and season with more salt if needed. The stew can be served immediately. 

Serving: The stew can be eaten with any carbohydrates such as bread, rice, potato or pasta. We serve ours with boiled potatoes, sour cream and bacon. (We cut the rest of the bacon  from the package into 1 cm strips and put it under the broiler for 5 minutes, until crisp and well-browned. Each potato is topped with sour cream and bacon strips.) The stew, when mixed with sour cream, turned into something absolutely pristine. 

Tips: This stew is fantastic off the bat. But generally, stews taste better the next day. When reheating, because each chicken thigh is large, keep simmering for about 5-10 minutes to ensure the chicken is fully reheated. Add more water if needed.