Gourmand Bleu: A Tasteful Celebration of Kickass Chow


Welcome to Gourmand Bleu!

As anybody who knows me can tell you, I'm kind of sappy when it comes to cooking; it really means a lot to me. If you came here from The Blue Room, then you probably know me mostly as a game designer, but gaming and cooking have a lot in common! They're both about getting friends around the table and making them feel good, so I decided there should be a portion of my website set aside for cooking, a subject for which my passion is second only to that I hold for my wife, Sandra.

Cooking nourishes, shows affection, entertains, and gives comfort. "Epicureanism" is a philosophy that holds that peace and pleasure are the principal aims in life, and that sounds good to me.

This page is meant for anyone who enjoys good food and good company. As the site grows, it will include original articles, recipes, and links relating to eating, dining, health and lifestyle. Come back often, and drop me a line now and then!




On The Menu

So far, I have seven of my food articles (plus some stray recipes) available on the page. More is on the way!

Articles

  • Basic Bread: I don't think there's anything more satisfying and comforting than freshly baked bread (unless it's a bowl of warm soup served with freshly baked bread). This is my "foundation" bread recipe, with lots of helpful notes for those trying their hand at bread-baking for the first time.
  • Pizza: Everybody loves pizza, and this article takes you from the flatbreads of the ancient Etruscans to the modern delicacy that is the American Pizza.
  • Barrel Grinders: A childhood favorite, my Mom started making these when we lived in Jersey. They're a deli classic; lots of good hot things buried in a kaiser roll and covered in cheese. If you've never had one, you'll definitely want to give these a try!
  • Holiday Dressing: My favorite part of the feast is the stuffing. This article will guide you to the best stuffing you've ever made - and the best gravy to eat with it! There's also a scaled-down "bachelor version" for the kind of recluses that make up most of my friends ;)
  • General Tso's Chicken: This is the most authentic and complete recipe for this dish you will find anywhere on the net. General Tso's is a popular take-out junk food at the local Chinese restaurants, and has pockets of popularity all over the country. Make some and find out why! I also briefly discuss where the dish came from, and who General Tso really was.
  • Sourdough Bread: This is my article on the basics of sourdough baking, for the sourdough novice. Want to bake bread without buying yeast? Flour and water is all it takes, and the taste of your sourdough will be unique, because each sourdough culture is different.
  • Whole-Wheat Cornmeal Bread: This is a very hearty, high-protein "cornbread" that's yeast-leavened. It makes a filling, crusty bread that's excellent for kaiser rolls to use as hamburger buns. More to the point, it's custom-tailored to minimize its impact on my blood sugar, now that I know I'm diabetic!

Stray Recipes

  • The Last Meal: Specifically, the meal I had on the night I finished writing the first draft of one of my RPG books, the infamous GURPS Warehouse 23. Liverwurst and bacon with marinated onions on a toasted bagel is my idea of food heaven, and I had no idea the wierd soup would be so good!
  • Egg Nog: I've loved the stuff since I was a kid, when, as far as I knew, it came in a carton from the supermarket. By the time I was in high school, I was determined to perfect my own recipe for it. Here it is, ten years later.
  • Soft Pretzels have been a favorite snack of mine since kindergarten, when I used to get them at the Hill's department store snack bar in Cumberland, Maryland. I first tried making them in high school, with mixed results. Here's how I make them now.
  • Swiss Enchiladas are something I only make a couple of times a year, when I need to feed a lot of people something very tasty. I've never regretted the choice; they're unique and just about everybody finds them delicious.
  • Biscuits (and Dumplings): I think the astrologers have it wrong. Somewhere in the heavens there is a Sign of the Biscuit, and I was born under it. I won't bore you here with the stories; suffice it to say it involves everything from games to fortune cookies to (I recently discovered) musicians that my wife knew, back in Newfoundland. This is the recipe I swear by.

For the Beginner . . .

I'm hoping to add more material specifically for novice cooks in the future, but for now I think you'll enjoy the two small ones I can offer: My (recently updated) Selecting A Cookbook page is here, along with a primer on Making Chicken Stock . . . Once you have a good cooking library, you're on your way, and if you can make good chicken stock, you can make just about anybody happy and cozy with broth, soups, stews, gravies & sauces. Get cookin'!

Links

The three food sites I use most often are SOAR, the Rec.Food.Recipes Index , and The Kitchen Link - an amazing search engine and archive. The first two are online cookbooks - eclectic collections of recipes from a variety of online food authors. The third is your jumping point for nearly any question you might have about food.

A site that has recently grabbed my attention is Epicurious Food, a great site for recipes, cooking tips, and (most importantly) the excellent Epicurious Dictionary, which will tell you anything you need to know about any food or ingredient, and provide links to recipes using it.

Other links of interest

  • The Blue Room is my homepage.
  • The Food Channel is a terrific resource - they collect all the food-related news happening everywhere on the Web, and let you know about it. They also have an interesting weekly poll.
  • Canadian Living is a magazine my sweetie told me about - and they keep a terrific recipe archive.
  • The Kitchen Link Tips and FAQs Page is a huge, scary document linking to any kind of food-advice site on the Web.
  • The Newfoundland Recipes Home Page is a monthly net magazine, Yaffles & Yaffles, devoted to native Newfie chow! If you want to learn more about Newfoundland, you shouldn't miss Sandra's page! She's my favorite person in the world to cook for.

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