This Week’s Menu: Two at the Table Menu Week of May 7, 2017

It’s a bit of an abbreviated menu for Two at the Table this week, as Tony will be away at a conference Tuesday through Thursday nights and we have a New York Junior League event on Friday night. Plus, we have some great leftovers from last week. Nevertheless, we are trying a new recipe on Saturday.

We’ll have leftovers on both Sunday and Monday nights. On Sunday, we’ll have The Kitchn’s Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas. We made these last week on Thursday, May 4th (no, not Cinco de Mayo; we had other plans for that night!) and they turned out great. It’s a very simple recipe made all the easier by the fact that everything is cooked in the oven. On Monday, we’ll have Saveur’s Honey-Glazed Roast Pork with Apples. This was our Cinco de Mayo dinner. It takes quite a while to make, so it wasn’t ideal for a weeknight, which is why we had fajitas on the “wrong” day — if there can ever be a wrong day to have fajitas! This dish also turned out really well: the pork was flavorful and juicy; the apples and onions were soft but not mushy; and the Big Ol’ Apple Wheat Ale from Coney Island Brewery was a perfect substitute for the cider called for in the recipe. (As a side note, we loved the Apple Wheat Ale — the apple flavor is very subtle and the ale, unlike other apples ales we’ve tried, is not sweet at all — and would suggest it in place of cider just about every time.) Since the oven was on anyway, we paired it with some roasted fingerling potatoes tossed in olive oil, thyme, and salt and pepper. While a dish like this might be better suited for a cold fall night, we caught a break because it was chilly and rainy in New York Friday night. Tony is also trying to figure out a way to turn the left over pork, onions, and apples, into a sandwich. Stay tuned…

Kim will be left to her own devices for a few night, but we’ll attend the kick off party for the New York Junior League House Tour when Tony gets back to New York City. The event will be held at the Brooks Brothers flagship store at 346 Madison Avenue. Tony is a big fan of the Brooks Brothers’ non-iron shirts and is looking forward to replacing a few of his favorites — at a 15% discount too!

We’ll make one new recipe this week on Saturday night, namely The New York Times’ Tarragon Chicken. Tony is a big fan of tarragon, a slightly sweet, very licorice-y herb very popular in French cooking. He grew up eating fennel from time to time, and drinking things like anisette and sambuca, and hoarding all the black jelly beans come Easter, so it’s safe to say he likes licorice. The chicken is very easy: it’s marinated in olive oil mixed with tarragon (of course) and lemon zest and then roasted for about an hour. We thought about having a fennel salad with dinner, but it seemed like licorice overkill, so we’ll just have a simple green salad instead.

We will have a licorice-flavored aperitif though, one that we enjoy and that holds a special place in our hearts: Ricard. We had never heard of it before we took a trip to Paris in 2012 and even then, we discovered it almost by accident. After braving — and barely surviving –the crowds at the Musée d’Orsay, we decided to skip the Louvre and instead went to the adjacent Musée Des Arts Décoratifs. There, we saw a fun exhibit on the history of Babar, the world-famous elephant in the green suit, and a truly fantastic exhibit on the marketing history of Ricard. We saw posters and print ads; glasses and serving trays; pitchers and carafes (Ricard is served diluted with ice water, so these items were a big part of the marketing effort); and television commercials from around the world. We were also introduced to the classic tagline: “A Ricard, or nothing!” After a few glasses of Ricard over the rest of our trip, we kind of forgot about it until Kim found a Ricard pitcher in a random antique shop in Hudson, New York. Thus was born our Ricard collection, made up of pitchers and carafes we’ve picked up in our travels. We brought back a bottle of Ricard from a trip to Nice, France, where Tony (slightly) impressed the owner of Le Marlin by ordering a glass before dinner, and remain on the lookout for additions to our growing collection.