Best Of 2011, Guest Editors: Buffalo Tom’s Tom Maginnis On Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon Recipe

As 2011 comes to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.

Nothing if not a model of consistency, Buffalo Tom has been making the same decent-to-great music since 1992’s Let Me Come Over. Actually the Massachusetts trio’s third album, Let Me Come Over feels more like a debut, as it zeroed in brilliantly on the group’s strengths, namely the earnest, imagery-laden, acoustic-gone-electric songwriting of guitarist Bill Janovitz and bassist Chris Colbourn and the propulsive punk undercurrents supplied by drummer Tom Maginnis. Judging by the band’s latest, Skins (Scrawny), it’s a formula that still has legs. Skins is the group’s eighth album and second since reuniting after a 10-year (sort-of) break, and its world-weary lilt and been-there/done-that themes make it the perfect grown-up companion piece to Let Me Come Over’s reluctant coming-of-age angst. It may be the best thing the band has done since that LP. Buffalo Tom will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with Janovitz and Colbourn.

Maginnis: If done right, this is one of the most intense eating experiences you will ever have. Don’t cut corners. Do all the steps. Devote a whole day to making it. Some good friends and I made this while staying at the beach during a rainstorm last summer, and it was perfection. It’s the classic French technique of reduction taken to the extreme, concentrating the flavors of all the ingredients down to their very essence, then putting them all together. Bam! Invest in a Le Creuset Dutch oven; you will be glad you did. Accompany with a nice burgundy or zinfandel or Belgian beer. Not Belgian-style beer, actual Belgian beer: Chimay, Duvel or Saison Dupont farmhouse ale will do the trick.

Video after the jump.