Coq au Vin

E: Here’s another family recipe finally seeing the light of the internet for the first time. I don’t know where it came from initially, but I think it is pretty good. My mother has been making coq au vin approximately like this for years (I say approximately because she doesn’t usually measure anything) and I quite like it. I’ve made some slight changes, mostly to give it a bit more onion and garlic flavor, but the recipe is pretty much preserved from how I received it when I asked her to write it down for me in college.

You can make it equally well with red or white wine, and I’ve seen recipes that do it either way. I tend to use white because the end product is prettier, but I think you can use whatever you have at the time. It certainly won’t turn out bad. I’ve also made it using vermouth when I didn’t want to open a bottle of wine and I found that definitely worked ok too.

This is a classic dish that you simply have to make at some point. But please pronounce it correctly. If you say it “cocoa vinn” I will send some angry Frenchman to find you and teach you how to say it the right way.

French Blended Soup

E: I’m pleased to say that this recipe is finally making its way out into the world. It comes from my mother–her attempt to copy a dish she had at a French restaurant years ago–and I’ve had it (and made it) countless times. It was rediscovered in my family around the time I got my wisdom teeth out, and honestly, that first night of not being able to eat anything solid was, I think, the night I fell in love with this recipe. Joanna and I made this over the holidays with the express intention of finally getting it out in the world where it belongs.