Few precious shopping days are left until the holidays and if you haven’t checked off everyone on your list, I’d guess your panic is mounting. Here’s another holiday leftover from the Corner Table*. A little re-heating and it reads as tasty as it did last year. And – you can probably pull this gift together while running through the aisle of a well-stocked grocery store. Or click to The Food Section where Josh has compiled the ne plus ultra gift list.
The Ultimate Cassoulet Kit
My father loves cooking, so much so that each year, he picks a dish and spends the next 12 months perfecting it. (What can I say? The Leuzzis are an obsessive bunch.) Anyway, one Christmas, I hit upon the perfect gift idea for him, and I thought I'd share it with Epicurious readers, as chances are you have a food-mad relative or two.
The Christmas in question, my father had chosen cassoulet as the dish he'd spend the next year perfecting, so I decided to make him the ultimate cassoulet kit. I assembled ingredients (duck confit and sausage, demi-glace, etc.) and a set of white French porcelain (a large covered casserole and eight individual dishes), and went looking for a cassoulet cookbook. It turned out there wasn't one in print (aspiring authors, take note), so I made my own. I typed up as many recipes as I could find, called around to a few French chefs for their secrets (all attributed, of course), and had them all bound at Kinko's. When my father opened the present, he was a little perplexed to pull a duck leg out of an insulated box, but after some explanation, he was thrilled with the gift. I replicated the routine the following year for risotto.
*The Corner Table’s been vacated, but the articles live forever on my archiveblog snackfile, along with other media tidbits by yours truly. It is a work in progress, as lately I’ve taken time off archiving to shop!
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