Archive for October, 2007
AH&L invites Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar & View Executive Chef Christian Messier to blog about his favorite holiday recipe: Sugar Cookies.
As the holiday season approaches, you can feel the excitement in the air. Most people are out shopping for gifts, decorating their yards, going to children’s holiday plays, and looking forward to a few days off to relax.
And then there are the lives of chefs. This time of year, chefs are inundated with holiday parties, off-site catering events, a multitude of special holiday menus, and the final sprint to the end of the year to meet or beat food and labor cost goals.
Still, this time of year holds a special place in our hearts. When I think about my favorite holiday recipe, many memories from my childhood come to mind. Holidays were filled with friends and family gatherings– most of the time around food and enjoying each other’s company. (This was long before HDTV, pay per view, or Xbox.)
Many two-hour long trips to Grandma’s house were filled with eager anticipation of kitchen countertops filled with containers of baked goods: home-made candies, cookies, and of course, a house filled with the smell of a roasting turkey.
My favoriteholiday recipe, though, was one Grandma Tony and I found in a Lutheran Church cookbook from Rudd, Iowa from the early 1970s. The contributors were Gladys Gruis and Mrs. Dale Sido. It is a Sugar Cookie Recipe requiring no time to set up in the refrigerator as many do.
As I make cookies with my children, and think back to when I was young, I realize the best holiday recipe of all has only three ingredients; good food, family, and friends spending time together. And the best part of the recipe? It’s so easy to make. Cook, cool, and decorate as you wish.
Drop Sugar Cookies Recipe
Although it is called “drop cookies,” we always rolled the dough out right away, without refrigeration, and cut shapes with cookie cutters appropriate for the season. They were easy to cut and tasted terrific.
Sift:
2 1/2 c. flour
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. baking soda
Cream:
1/2 c. margarine and 1/2 c. lard or 1c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
Add 1 egg. Beat until fluffy. Stir in dry ingredients. Add 2 T. milk. Drop by teaspoonfuls on ungreased sheet; flatten with bottom of glass which has been dipped in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees, 12 minutes.
Enjoy the cookies. What is your favorite holiday recipe?
—Chef Messier
About the chef: The Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar & View Executive Chef Christian Messier integrates 15 years of culinary experience into creating contemporary American cuisine with the finest ingredients and his own creative flair. Chef Messier came to The Sun Dial from The Renaissance Grand Downtown St. Louis-Convention Hotel where he was chef for almost two years. Prior to that, Chef Messier served as sous chef at The Phoenician, a five-star, five-diamond, world-class resort in Scottsdale, AZ. He began his career at the award-winning Country Club of the South in Alpharetta.About the restaurant: The Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar & View is Atlanta’s only tri-level complex featuring a revolving upscale restaurant, a rotating cocktail lounge, as well as an observatory view level. Situated atop the Westin Peachtree Plaza at 210 Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, the Sun Dial offers breathtaking 360-degree panoramic views of Atlanta, live jazz, seasonally-influenced contemporary American cuisine and specialty desserts.
October 30th, 2007
Traveling is fun and exciting, but for people trying to watch their waistlines, it can sometimes be a daunting task. Many hotels now feature upscale dining options that cater to a variety of palates and preferences. With more chef-driven cuisine, guests can often enjoy healthier options that are cooked to order. As Executive Chef of Lobby at TWELVE Atlantic Station and Room at TWELVE Centennial Park, I prepare dishes on a daily basis that are tailored to a diner’s specific needs. From dressing on the side to substituting green beans for mashed potatoes, simply letting your requests be known is all it takes to have a meal tweaked just for you!
How have you personalized your orders to make hotel meals healthier for you?
-Chef Oltarsh
October 30th, 2007
Atlanta’s darling Chef Kevin Rathbun announced his highly anticipated (and 14-seat only) Cooking Class lineup for 2008; The American Institue of Georgia Architects (AIA-GA) announced its Georgia Design award winners; among them, TVS Architects, Jova/Daniels/Busby, and Susan Bridge’s contemporary art gallery Whitespace, which received a First Merit Design Award for its restoration of a 100-year-old building. with “handsome details, custom fabrications of light fixtures, steel doors and an elegant plan where movable walls act as light filt” and its “concept of floating wall panels, well proportioned in the space and against the walls that are fixed or pivoting to alter the plan or reveal additional wall surface for expanded display.” Congratulations, Susan! And, finally, up this week: DIFFA Atlanta’s Dining by Design. Pictures to come tomorrow!
October 24th, 2007
Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles is currently accepting nominations for our third-annual 20 Under 40 list. Deadline is November 12th.
October 22nd, 2007
New York Design Diva Marcia Sherrill sends dispatches from her most recent travels.
Working at the Hong Kong office of my handbag factory and my precious stone lapidarist, I found that both factories were located just hours away in the same province in China. Yes, southern China is rivaling Bejing and Shanghai as an industrial SUPER ZONE. When traveling, DO NOT try what we did going in—namely a bus to the Hong Kong Immigrations; another bus to the Chinese Immigrations; and then traversing 8 million stairways and then another bus to our destination.
Nope, this Southern Lady insisted on a car on the way back to Hong Kong (about 3,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $400), but worth every yen as we were whisked back to Hong Kong in a van replete with Video for you and the driver who alternately watches TV, talks on his Bluetooth-enabled cell phone and plays games on another contraption. Such is their CAUTION on the roads.
You drive up to both Immigration posts and are not subjected to anything more than a throwing open of your van doors, passport scrutiny and an electronic gun that accesses your temperature—yes with SARS and Avian Bird Flus still in recent memory you are not leaving Hong Kong or Mainland China with a temperature.
But CHINA is magnificent. Every other corner is unbridled construction and development; while in between this frenetic work are the tiny Chinese stalls selling goods and cooking God Knows What! Carts full of chickens and pigs stop at the red light alongside Mercedes and Bentleys.
Our hotel, The International Hotel of Quandong, featured three types of accommodations: Western, Japanese, and Chinese. Opting for Japanese we each had a two-story Zen Palace with a top floor boasting a typical Japanese bed and a plasma screen TV and as for the hotel help…a call to the hotel concierge started with “I’d like a Pellegrino…” and an IMMEDIATE ding at your door from a waiter bearing a bottle and lemon slices. The work ethic is unbelievable.
The factory workers work from 8 am to 10 pm with meal breaks and then retire to DORMITORIES where they sleep. But I am constantly assured that my offering of extra cash would be an insult as the Chinese are PROUD of their factory jobs. And the factories? Nothing in America or Europe compares—the hive of activity, the belt floors, the bag floors, the SCREEN PRINTING floors—everything but handbag hardware together for one-stop designing. Dinner at the hotel offers surprises while lunch is routinely McDonalds and KFC (with Chinese twists such as the KFC egg pie dessert).
The Hotel Buffet netted us Fried Loach (a local worm delicacy from what we could decipher), Fried Insects with Solt and the ever-tempting Frog with Sauce. We chose pizza, which seemed innocent until we could not get our waiter to assure us that the meat was NOT French Bulldog.
The Chinese will kill themselves to accommodate you. And their TV is CCTV (Chinese controlled, but in English is more fascinating than Bravo, CNN and The History Channel rolled into one). China is the stepchild of the more Western Hong Kong but for this weary traveler, it is China that calls me back. Its youth, earnestness and its sheer hospitality.
—Marcia Sherrill
October 22nd, 2007
New York Design Diva Marcia Sherrill sends dispatches from her most recent travels.
Having been to Japan I thought I was prepared for the magic and mystery of this former British Isle but nothing could have prepared me for the inscrutable Orientalism of Hong Kong and China. And the best part? It seems as if there is one Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton store for every 200 people—they are ubiquitous in the city that sports giant skyscrapers like Atlanta does trees.
Every squre inch of this hilly atoll sports either a mall (and I mean mega-mall, like Lenox on steroids) or a hotel or a giant office building. In between lurk the tiny shops and market streets and warrens of restaurants, Chinese and Western, that feed these affluent hordes. The Peninsula Hotel is magnificent and tea there is de rigeur for the weary traveler but try to get off the beaten path of stores, stores, stores and head to the tiny local markets for silks and other yummy fabrics—and trust me, they can make you that Balmain Dress in Vogue in the three days that you will reside in Hong Kong.
It was all I could do not to launch The Marcia Sherrill Couture Collection right then and there. The main attraction is the city’s nightly light show that has all of the massive buildings lining the harbor lit up in a 4th-of-July style extravaganza that lasts a full 15 minutes. The Gateway Mall across from the Sheraton is not as super mod as the newly opened Elements Mall but it does house Japan’s IT shop, where all the natives shop and upstairs on the third floor is their incomparable outlet store with all the big European labels. Go native and buy scads of make-up from Japanese Cosmetics, FACES.
Seems as though the younger Hong Kong shoppers want all things Japanese, and why shouldn’t you at half the price of the European Brands we can get at Phipps!
—Marcia Sherrill
October 22nd, 2007
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