Duck Breast; Smashed Celery Root with Garlic-Sage Butter; Duck-Fat-Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries

The first step is to roast the vegetables. Preheat the oven to 375, then clean and chop the sprouts and celery root* and coat with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. You can put them on the same baking sheet if you want, as long as you keep them separate so you can take them out at different times. The sprouts should take 10-15 minutes; take them out when a few are starting to brown and they're all easy to stab with a fork. The celery root pieces should be about the size of the brussels sprouts pieces, but will take about twice as long. Once they're soft to the touch, take them out as well but don't turn off the oven - you'll need it for the duck.

[*Celery root (AKA celeriac) is something most people I know don't really eat, but it's easy to do and quite tasty. It has a faint flavor of celery and carrot and a texture somewhere between a parsnip and a potato. It looks like a horrible dirt clod when you buy it, but you just slice off the outside layer and rinse off your knife and then you're good to go.]

When you're a few minutes away from taking the celery root out of the oven, get the duck going in a big skillet you can put in the oven later. Put it on very high heat, get it ripping hot, and add a little oil. Salt and pepper the skin side of the duck breast and put it down in the oil. Sear it for a few seconds and immediately turn the heat down to medium (on an electric stove go ahead and turn off the eye before you even put the breast in). You want to render out the fat layer without burning the skin. Once you've extracted a couple tablespoons of fat and the edges of the breast are starting to develop a well-done greyish look, salt and pepper the meaty side of the breast and turn it over in the pan. Let that cook for a minute, then into the oven for five more minutes or so (make it ten if you're an idiot and you take your duck well-done).

While that's going, work on the celery root. Melt a pat of butter over medium heat, then fry a clove or so of garlic for a minute. Add a couple big leaves of chiffonaded sage and a pinch of salt, let that all mix together for a minute, then take it off the heat. Drop in the pieces of roasted celery root, add a splash of milk or cream, and mash together. Set aside but keep warm.

When the duck is done, pull it out of the oven and set the breast aside to rest. Leave the fat in the pan - if you thought bacon grease was good, wait til you fry something in duck fat (Bobby, we'll talk). Add a thinly sliced shallot and a little salt to the pan and cook until the shallot's soft. No need to put the pan back on the fire - there should be enough residual heat from the oven to finish up. To the cooked shallot, add the sprouts and a couple of dried cranberries, then toss to mix and coat.

Slice the breast on a bias after it's rested for a few minutes. Put down the mash, and top with the sprouts and the duck. Garnish with a tiny leaf of sage (mine didn't make the photo). Serve with a wine you'd serve with Thanksgiving dinner.

Seared Mahi-Mahi over Green Pea Puree with Lemon-Garlic Orzo

I have been trying to get a nice crust on a piece of fish for years. Every restaurant in the universe seems to manage it no problem, but for some reason I could never pull it off. Finally I discovered the tricks: Teflon, plenty of oil, a very hot pan (#1 and #3 may combine to cause cancer or kill your household pets with lethal fumes - enjoy tasty seared fish at your own risk). In any case, once you get the hang of it, it turns out to be very easy. Salt and pepper the prettier side of the fish. Get your pan really hot, with a few tablespoons of olive oil to coat the surface, then set the fish down on the nice side. If it doesn't sizzle and pop and burn you a little you didn't do it right. Don't touch it for at least a couple of minutes. Once it's cooked a little more than halfway through (you can kind of gauge this by looking at the exposed edge of the piece), turn it over. Nobody wants accidentally raw fish, but it's much better to serve it on the slightly rare side than the overdone and dry side. Take it off the heat and plate. The fish actually takes very little time so you should probably do it last.

First, start the puree. This is easy. Sweat some onions and green onions in a little butter with salt and pepper until softened up a bit. Throw in some green peas. Fresh would be great, but if like me you only had half a bag of freezerburned old frozen ones, that's fine. Add enough water to cover the peas, and give the whole thing a stir. We want to cook the peas, but barely - color is the real key here, and overdone peas turn into army green mush. Once they're done, take them off the heat, cool them down a little, and blend until smooth. Adjust the seasoning and texture as needed by adding a little liquid. Water would be fine, lemon juice or a few drops of vinegar if you want some brightness, salt if it needs more flavor, etc. I actually added some buttermilk because I had some in the fridge and I love the stuff. It added some sourness and some creaminess and a certain little "Hm, what is that?" character to the mix.

Cook the orzo in salted boiling water. Sautee garlic and shallot in a little butter, with salt and pepper to taste. I always burn the garlic but I bet yours will taste better if you don't, so keep an eye on it. Throw in some chopped fresh parsley* if you have it (don't buy a whole bunch just for this though), then add a splash of white wine and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cook that for a minute, then add in the pasta and toss to combine. Put some more parsley if you like it and still have it (especially if you went out and bought parsley just for this).

[*Curly parsley tastes nasty and as far as I can tell only exists as an ugly garnish for boring food at diners and steak houses. I would love to engineer a boycott to destroy the annoying curly parsley industry. In any case: buy flat-leaf parsley!]

Pour the puree out into a shallow bowl or deep plate (or pretentious bowl/plate hybrid you bought because you are the type of weirdo who posts pictures of his dinner on the internet). Spoon a serving of the pasta across the puree, then rest a piece of fish on top of that. I garnished the fish with a little slice of lemon peel, a parsley leaf, and some pink Australian sea salt.

Skillet-Roasted Lamb Chops with Rosemary-Leek Hush Puppies, Quick-Pickled Fennel and Shallots, and Green Pea Puree

For the fennel (which you can make ahead of time): combine equal parts vinegar (cider or sherry would be best) and water, and bring to a boil along with salt (lots), a few black peppercorns, a bay leaf, and a little sugar. While that's getting hot, thinly slice your fennel bulb and a shallot, either on a mandoline or with a sharp knife. Once the pickling liquid is boiling, pour it over your vegetables in a bowl to cover, give it a quick stir, and set aside for about an hour. Once the vegetables have lost most of their crunch, drain off the liquid, rinse once or twice with cold water, and set aside.

For the lamb and hush puppies, preheat an oven to about 375. In a mixing bowl, combine buttermilk, an egg, and some chopped leek and rosemary (I wish I'd used more rosemary in mine, so be generous) along with salt and pepper to taste. Add cornmeal until the batter is thick but not yet doughy. Set aside.

Cook some green peas until done, but don't overcook them as this will ruin the color. You're shooting for a bright green, not olive. In a blender, combine peas, salt, olive oil, and lemon juice and blend until smooth.

For the lamb, get a cast iron skillet or other heavy pan as hot as you can manage, then add a bit of oil to the bottom. While the pan is heating, salt and pepper your rack of lamb to taste - I like it heavy on the pepper. This is also a good time to get your fryer oil going. I don't have an oil thermometer, but it's ready to go once a little dollop of hush puppy batter starts bubbling and hissing as soon as you drop it in. Sear the lamb for a few minutes on each side, then put the skillet in the oven (lamb fat side down) for about 15-20 minutes. We're going for medium rare.

Get out the bowl of hush puppy batter and add a dash each of baking soda and baking powder. Stir to combine, then drop spoonful-sized globs in the got oil. If you are a food geek like me you will make quenelles, but don't bother if you don't feel like it. They're done when they're medium brown on the outside. Set them on a paper towel and throw a little salt on to season the crust.

Put fennel on the plate along with some of the pea puree, and set a couple of hush puppies in the peas (dipping the former in the latter is highly recommended). Slice out your chops and rest on top of the fennel.

Grilled Lobster with Cherry Tomatoes, Conecuh Sausage, and Garlic Cheese Grits

grits. garlic. butter. tillamook cheddar.

Conecuh sausage.

shallots. sage. tomatoes.

lobster tail.

Seared Beef with Pan Juices; Baby Arugula,Truffle-Lemon Vinaigrette, and Crispy-Fried Shallot; New Potato Gratin with Rosemary and Great Hill Blue

potato. cream. blue cheese. rosemary.

arugula. lemon. olive oil. truffle oil. shallot.

beef sirloin steak. zinfandel. butter. shallot.

Macaroni and Cheese with Brie, Truffle, and Rosemary

pasta. brie. truffle. rosemary. shallot. breadcrumbs. parmesan. nutmeg.

Lamb Chops with Walnut-Mint Pesto and Caramelized Shallots; Celeriac Purée; Fiddleheads with Country Dijon Dressing

fiddleheads. coarse dijon. cider vinegar. shallot. olive oil.

lamb.

mint. walnut. oil. lemon.

shallot.

celeriac. onion. butter. sage.