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The Food Maven Diary
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08/02/1999 Archived Entry: "Dinners in Litchfield & Ed's Dry Negroni"
I went to two dinner parties over the weekend. At both we sat outdoors and felt like we were the main course for the bugs. I’m still scratching. But the food the humans got to eat was delicious, too, and the company couldn’t have been better.
On Friday night, I went to visit Dorothy and Doug Hamilton, the owners of the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. They’ve just put the finishing touches on an awesome Adirondack-style home on Lake Waramaug, in Litchfield County, Connecticut. When they realized the neighbors were too noisy, they bought the neighboring property also, and turned it into the Lakeview Inn. Last season, the inn was only a restaurant, but now there are rooms to let, too.
We started the evening with drinks and a tour of the Hamilton’s new home. I’ll give you one telling detail: The cabinets of the white kitchen, which sports a wood-burning pizza oven, are trimmed with birch twigs, and the walls of the breakfast room next to the kitchen are covered in birch bark. Drinks in hand, the Hamilton’s five-year-old daughter, Olivia, an incredible charmer, then gave us a tour of the park-like property, including her secret place. I was very honored. Doug then took us on a “sunset cruise” around the lake on his 1930-something motor boat. That was a lot of fun, especially since Dorothy knows the gossip about almost every property on the lake. Finally, we went across the road to the inn for dinner.
The deck of the Lakeview Inn affords a beautiful view of the restaurant’s gardens and the lake across the road, although I’d like to sit in the beautiful, bug-free dining room next time. And there definitely will be a next time because the Lakeview, as far as I know, has no culinary competition in Litchfield County, a place known for its natural beauty and quaint New England villages but not for cuisine. (I always joke that Litchfield is a bread-free zone.) Okay, there are a couple of other newish places that I’m curious about, but you know me, once I find a good restaurant with a warm welcome I tend not to wander. The menu is eclectic, in the contemporary mode, and the chef – ironically a Culinary Institute of America graduate, not an FCI lad -- is cooking with seasonal, even local ingredients whenever possible.
On Saturday night, I went to my friends Thayer and Ed Hochberg, who also live near me in Litchfield Co. Thayer and Ed have often collaborated on cooking dinner, so who knew they fought when they did. This night Thayer actually toasted Ed over their collaboration, because, she said, it was the first time in their 37 years of marriage that it all went peacefully.
We started with drinks and appetizers around the pool – wedges of two differently topped foccace bought from a new local bakery that may make my crack about Litchefield not accurate anymore; rounds of cucumber topped with dabs of taramosalata, the Greek dip based on tarama, which is potted cod roe; smoked mussels with a creamy horseradish dip, both of which Thayer buys from our local, wandering fresh fish man, a guy who parks his van in various villages and sells his wares off the back of it.
Dinner was a plate of cool braised rice flanked by whole lobster tails out of their shells, and jumbo shrimp. Thayer called it cold paella, although the seafood was cooked separately from the rice. A platter of grilled vegetables was passed. Thayer said that she and Ed cooked 16 lobsters so every one of the eight of us could have two tails. Very thoughtful and very extravagant, we all thought. I meant to ask Thayer what she did with the claw meat. I hope she and Ed had a great lobster salad. Dessert was a crčme brulee tart with peaches from that new bakery in Bantam.
The only recipe I walked away with was Ed’s cocktail concoction, which he has made for me before but never so glamorously. This time he poured it into a martini glass, from a set he’d bought at a tag sale that morning. It’s a variation on a classic Negroni, which is equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. Changing the vermouth to dry, and reducing the Campari by half results in a vibrant pink-peachy color and a clean, refreshing taste.
Ed Hochberg’s Dry Negroni
Makes 1 generous drink
1 1/2 ounces gin
1 1/2 ounces dry French vermouth
3/4 ounce (or slightly less) Campari
Put 4 ice cubes in an old-fashioned glass. Add all the ingredients and stir well. Serve on the rocks.
Or, mix the drink as above in a cocktail mixer and strain into a martini glass.
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