Thanks for the tip. The launching pad is this, but you seem to need to subscribe to go much further:
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Yes, part of the plan with him, ATK and Cook’s Country. Pay to play, they gotta earn their money somehow.
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At the bottom of the weekly Boston Globe recipes from Milk Street/Christopher Kimball is this notice. Of course, not helpful if you are not a Boston Globe subscriber.
“Christopher Kimball is the founder of Milk Street, home to a magazine, school, and radio and television shows. Globe readers get 12 weeks of complete digital access, plus two issues of Milk Street print magazine, for just $1. Go to 177milkstreet.com/globe. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.”
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And on the show, the hosts always reference their website for ‘this recipe and more’, but do not say it is free. I subscribed to his mag when it first came out (a charter membership, no less) and it was okay until renewal time came up and then I decided it wasn’t worth it.
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Same thing for me, both for ATK when he was there and the Milk St. site. Both seemed big, confusing marketing schemes, which is one of the reasons I lost respect for him. His recipes from Milk Street in the Globe seem slightly more complex and interesting, but I can usually kind more complex and interesting recipes for the same dish elsewhere.
I prefer complex and interesting and freeze leftovers that aren’t eaten a few days! Otherwise I’m good with really fast and easy I improvise.
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I have a feeling Kimball has earned plenty of money.
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We normally try to hit Oleana two or three times every summer, but didn’t this year for various reasons. Yesterday was such a nice day, though, that we went there a bit before 5 to try to snag a spot in the garden. We needn’t have worried so much. We were the first in line. About 10 minutes later another couple showed up. It took another 10 minutes before others started appearing. But by 5:30 when, with their usual clockwork precision, they unlocked their door the line had stretched onto the street.
It was a year since we were last there and their menu has undergone a significant change. From the small and larger plates division of the last 20-25 years they now have categories: vegetables, fish and meat. The vegetable dishes were called meze, but they were no smaller than the one fish and one meat dishes we tried. A sad casualty of this restructuring is that the deviled eggs have gone.
The food was good, as always, and the felafel continue to burst with flavor. The lamb dolma was, however, wrapped in some very chewy, charred cabbage and the crab brandade under some excellent shrimp was rather lacking in crabby flavor. The best dish of the night was the potato and lentil kubba, showered with tiny, crisp shreds of deep fried carrot.
The pacing of the meals is now also different. In the past they brought out dishes as they were prepared. They’d make a batch of felafel, then bring out plates to everybody who’d ordered that dish. Similarly the Sultan’s Delight, etc. Now they seem to be deliberately trying to course things out. First the veg, then the fish, then the meat. That meant that though we were the first to be seated, we were the last diners in the garden to get any food. All the other tables had ordered either bread or a salad and in the current pecking order those emerge first. After 15 minutes, we flagged down a server and asked for bread (which was brought instantly).
Still, glitches and all, it’s such a lovely place to eat.
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That sounds like an improvement - serving when a dish is ready often leads to table “overload” and warm dishes getting cold fast
It would be an improvement if they did it right (or warned you that everything you’ve ordered will take time). They now seem to have a hybrid situation where the kitchen still makes one or two things at a time, and brings them out to everybody who ordered them, while still coursing. We were not warned that our lightest dish – the felafel – was the next table’s heaviest, and that we’d have to wait to start eating.
Still I agree with the table overload issue of yesteryear. But in yesteryear we were faster eaters and would inhale dishes as they arrived.
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Let me add that the za’atar bread (still the same 5-star quality after all these years) now comes with a fantastic, ethereal, whipped pumpkin&lentil puree. Get it. (And not only because it comes quickly.)
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We are (reluctantly) going to be giving up a table for 6 at Oleana for this Saturday – if anyone has interest in it, I can try to figure out to time the cancellation or call the restaurant to swap names.
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So sorry to hear you are missing this. I’d love to try to round up a group of 6 to take it, but we have other plans for Saturday. Thanks for offering!
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