Chestnut Soup

This recipe was sent to me almost a decade ago by my Aunt. It was from the February 2001 issue of Food & Wine Magazine, and credited to Alex Urena, executive chef of Manhattan’s Blue Hill Restaurant.

Servings: 2 to 4
Ingredients:

3 tablespoons canola oil
One 14-ounce vacuum-packed jar of cooked and peeled chestnuts (2 1/2 cups)
1 medium onion, minced
1 medium leek, white and tender green parts only, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 teaspoons honey
4 cups chicken stock or canned low-sodium broth
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 teaspoons Cognac or brandy
1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Steps:

1. In a large saucepan, heat the oil until shimmering. Add 4 of the chestnuts and sauté over moderately high heat until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and let cool. Add the onion and leek to the pan, cover and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Uncover and cook over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add the honey and stir until melted. Stir in the remaining chestnuts and the stock, season with salt and pepper and simmer over moderate heat for 10 minutes.

2. Finely chop the sautéed chestnuts. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender until smooth, or use an immersion blender right in the pot. If you like, strain through a fine sieve (although I prefer it thicker). Season the soup with salt and pepper and stir in the Cognac. Ladle the soup into shallow bowls. Garnish with the chopped chestnuts and parsley and serve.

Note: I garnished with spiced heavy cream and balsamic glaze instead of the parsley. For the cream, I used ½ C whipping cream, and added a few pinches each of cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger and sugar, then whisked it till thickened. For the balsamic glaze, I reduced a pint of balsamic vinegar reduced slooooowly (at a simmer) in a heavy saucepan down to ½ C. It takes hours and the house smells, but it’s lovely stuff J. I put them in squeeze bottles (the kind you get to put your shampoo in while traveling) in order to drizzle them on the way I did. Or… you can buy Balsamic Glaze already made

Make Ahead: The chestnut soup can be refrigerated overnight. Garnish with the sautéed chestnuts and parsley before serving.

Ethics is Not for Wimps

I’m a longtime fan of Michael Josephson. He’s the founder of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, and provides the  ”Character Counts” segments to which I listen on KNX radio here in Los Angeles. (He’s also the uncle of a close friend of mine, but I didn’t know that until long after I became a devoted listener.) As the parent of college-age child, I found today’s segment particularly timely and useful:

Let’s be honest. Ethics is not for wimps. It’s not easy being a good person.

It’s not easy to be honest when it might be costly, to play fair when others cheat, or to keep promises that are inconvenient.

It’s not easy to stand up for our beliefs and still respect differing viewpoints.

It’s not easy to control powerful impulses, to be accountable for our attitudes and actions, to tackle unpleasant tasks, or to sacrifice the now for later.

It’s not easy to bear criticism and learn from it without getting angry, to take advice, or to admit error.

It’s not easy to feel genuine remorse and apologize sincerely or to accept an apology graciously and truly forgive.

It’s not easy to stop feeling like a victim, to resist cynicism, or to make the best of every situation.

It’s not easy to be consistently kind, to think of others first, to judge generously, or to give the benefit of the doubt.

It’s not easy to be grateful or to give without concern for reward or gratitude.

It’s not easy to fail and still keep trying, to learn from failure, to risk failing again, to start over, to lose with grace, or to be glad of another’s success.

It’s not easy to look at ourselves honestly and be accountable, to avoid excuses and rationalizations, or to resist temptations.

No, being a person of character is not easy. That’s why it’s such a lofty goal and an admirable achievement.

To learn more about JII, and the various programs that have to instill ethics in both students and professionals, please visit their website at http://josephsoninstitute.org.

Twitter’s New RT Feature

As my mom likes to say, “there are pros and cons on both sides” to Twitter’s new RT function (at this writing, still being rolled out in Beta). Here are what I perceive them to be at this point.

First, the good.

• It makes the process of retweeting much easier. Just click a button. No need to copy/paste, no inadvertently omitting or misspelling the username of the person you’re RTing.
• It provides an easy way to evaluate the viral nature/popularity of a given tweet, by seeing how many times it’s been retweeted.
• It preserves the original author’s wording intact, mitigating against changed meanings, plagiarism and tweetjacking. (Although those inclined to do the latter probably won’t avail themselves of the RT function).
• It means you don’t have to truncate words or resort to netspeak abbreviations, since you don’t have to make room for the “RT @” bits.
• It restores some of the functionality we lost with the change to the @ mentions feature (see my post on this here). In other words, we used to be able to see all the tweets of anyone we followed in our stream, even if they were addressing or replying to someone we didn’t already follow. That was a useful way to find new people to follow, and a way to jump into conversations. Twitter changed that so we now only see a person’s replies if we also follow the person to whom they’re replying. With the new RT feature, we can now easily see tweets from the accounts that those people we follow find interesting. This re-opens the opportunity for us to enter conversations and discover new people to follow.

Now the not-so-good.

• It can be jarring to see posts from names we don’t follow in our tweet stream. Twitter would do well to make the name of the person doing the RTing more prominent.
• The RT function, as created organically by the Twitter population, provides for context. We can, given the available characters, add our own sentiment, or explain why we’re RTing. The new function removes that possibility.
• Not all 3rd-party apps can currently see RTs created using the RT button. Many of us use such apps, both on our desktops and mobiles, to access Twitter. That means we’re potentially missing out on important RTs, which are as likely to contain timely news and information as humor or shopping tips. It also means you can’t use the RT button while using those apps (although some, like TweetDeck and Tweetie, do provide easy ways to create RTs without having to copy/paste).

As with most things Twitter, the RT process will continue to evolve. It’s a function that was originated by the Twitter community itself, and it’s heartening to see the company respond by officially incporporating it to the service.