Mama Cassoulet!

You did want to be there for a feast to end all feasts, the latest Beer Dinner at Hollister (two previous paeans to pigging out are here and here) that we crazily enjoyed last night. I won't go on and on given you can read the menu and make your own drooling conclusions. But some things do need to be said.

1) Celery root soup is way way better than anything with the words celery and root in its name deserves to be. Soothing, rich, the perfect warm up on a chilly winter evening (those of you with real weather, no laughing, please--it was like in the low 50s last night here). And the tiny diced sauteed apples sub for bacon much more effectively than you'd think.

2) Shave me some fennel and I'll be your friend for life. (Fennel with 5 o'clock shadow isn't nearly as tasty.)

3) Pomegranate seeds and persimmon together is not over-kill.

4) If you put three kinds of squash in enough cheese and no doubt some butter and cream, no one will ever tell you squash is boring.

5) Anything is better roasted. I might eat gravel if it spent enough time in olive oil and a 375° oven. Plus it's fun to say rutabaga.

6) Three different kinds of kale braised is not over-kill, especially when one is delightfully purplish and doesn't lose its color when cooked.

7) No doubt on Olympus they had French chefs and ate cassoulet. It is the perfect meal, based on beans so it keeps you humble, yet then there's the rich sauce, the duck, the pork, the sausage. And it has to come in a big pot, all together--none of this deconstructed shit. I mean, if a put a bunch of steel girders and rivets on your plate, I couldn't call it the Eiffel Tower now, could I. Don't screw around with French brilliance. Unless you want to make gunciale sausage. That's just smart.

8) Evidently you can cook Hachiya persimmons and not make mush.

9) Asking for a small glass of hip-hop double IPA to end a meal like this one means you've got one of the deadly sins nailed for life.