While My Sautoir Gently Sweats

Oops, I've Seem to Have Forgotten to Blog

2010-09-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

Life threw up a plethora of challenges to keeping this here old blog alive and kicking this summer. The biggest road block was that I was writing a lot at work. After spending hours each day trying to find different ways of saying the same thing in new and exciting ways, the idea of sitting behind a keyboard and crafting witty and exciting prose was not what I wanted to spend my evening on. Besides there was lots of food to cook on the grill.

I tackled pulled pork a few weeks ago and it came out really well if I have to say so myself. Mom loved it as well, but you don't expect to get a negative review from your mother do you. Except if it's your high school girlfriend, but there is no need to bring that back up.

I also spent a lot of my free time behind a camera this summer. I took a lot of photography classes and I've been working on several non-food related photography classes.

But now the summer is over. The weekend parking spaces have magically disappeared, the lines in front of the bars have returned and symbolically, the grill ran out of gas the day after Labor Day.

I have a lot of interesting(I hope) events lined up in the near future: A class with the man who literally wrote the book on food photography, the New York Food and Wine Festival and several other events will be popping up like Halloween pumpkins. I've also been mulling a change in the blog that should be fun and interesting for all partied involved, ie me writing about it and you poor, poor people... I mean my loyal followers will enjoy reading.

So, instead of the sweet smell of bbq wafting through the condo, that official Sunday scent of roasting chicken is permeating. And what a welcome smell it is.

Is the Sandwich Ready for its Close Up?

2010-08-01T08:54:00.000-04:00

OK, turn a little to the right. Could you reflect that light a little more to the left? Hold it, hold it... Yes!, I got the shot. What, is John going to bore us with some more fashion shots? This is a food blog. Oh, no. I was hard at work crafting a photo of a beautiful.... sandwich.

Crafting a good food photo is not easy. Some food is great to eat, but not that photogenic. You have to work fast because the food dries out, wilts, turns brown or even melts into a puddle. You have to work the light just right. Using natural light doesn't mean just plopping a plate of food by the window and snapping away. You need to control the natural light with shades, reflectors, and other modifiers. Its a craft that one needs to constantly practice to get better at.

I noticed that the International Center of Photography was offering a food photography class. In fact, it was the first time it was offering a food photography class. I would have to take two days off from work to attend, but what the heck, I needed a break.

The international in International Center of Photography is not just hyperbole. The class had students from Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and Singapore among other countries. The instructor was Susie Cushner, a widely published food photographer. The class started with a survey of some of the better food photographers out there. There are some people doing really, really good work out there. I really liked the work of Roland Bello. His work had a narrative running through it that added another level of interest in his photos. His work was often featured in the dearly departed Gourmet magazine.

The next two days we met at The Shooting Kitchen studio in Tribeca. This is a photography studio built around shooting food. It featured three separate areas to shoot in, including a full blown kitchen. A professional food stylist was on hand to help out. In the real world of food photography, a photographer can't work alone. They need a food stylist and sometimes a prop stylist to get the job done in time.

The first day was a little rough. It was tough getting all the elements together to get a good shot. The second day flowed much better. A rain storm came through in the afternoon, breaking the heat wave that held NYC in its fiery grasp. But that made the lighting that much harder to deal with. I did get my best shot, the sandwich, during this dreary period.

The final day we did some outside shooting at the Union Square Greenmarket. The summer's bounty was on display throughout the park. It was difficult to pick just what beautiful vegetables to shoot.

This class was both challenging and rewarding. Anyone who is thinking about becoming a food photographer should take a class like this to get a feel for what is involved in this profession. As with many photography classes, you start to look at things a different way. Instead of just seeing a sandwich, I now see a Diva.

Hoboken Food Tour

2010-07-18T20:55:00.000-04:00

A class in studio lighting morphed into a class on fashion photography, so I channelled my inner Austin Powers and shot photos like this:

I took advantage of my free time this weekend to examine my town more closely.

It is easy to ignore the things that are right underneath our noses. We are apt to jump on that plane to Aspen but to tale an afternoon to look at the food purveyors in our own area, we turn a blind palette. Yesterday I decided to remedy that situation.

For the past year, a Hoboken food tour has been offered. This was a chance to glimpse the family owned world of food purveyors that has kept this city well fed for generations. Despite the 90 degree plus temperature, I signed up.

I could not have been happier with the tour. the guide Avi had a deep and comprehensive knowledge of the Hoboken food world, We were given behind the scenes looks of the coal oven at Antique Bakery. We were treated to the wonderful pizza at Grimaldis. Most impressive was Tony Lisa's demo of making mozzarella. He and his brother formed the cheese by hand as countless generations before them have done. Handmade, artisan and local as it could possible be.

A new cupcake centric bakery and an old coffee purveyor led to the end of the tour. While I am glad that "Cake Boss" has put Hoboken on the map, I am more happy that people like Tony Lisa and the Antique Bakery people have been producing great food for generations.

It's Not a Party Till Someone Brings the Liquid Nitrogen

2010-07-04T09:49:00.000-04:00

Whew, it has been busy here the last week or so. When it wasn't busy I was enjoying the wonderful weather outside on my terrace, grilling like a madman. So I'm taking this respite before the day's ribathon commences to wrap up Aspen and to wish everyone a Happy 4th.

The last event I went to at Aspen was very cool, darn near freezing in fact. It was a cooking competition between Rick Bayless and Michael Voltaggio, a Top Chef vs Top Chef Masters battle. It was very entertaining and it raised funds for Cook for the Cure, a breast cancer charity by auctioning off Rick Bayless' sous chef spot. The darn near freezing came in when Michael Voltaggio had a giant cylinder of liquid nitrogen wheeled onstage. It's not a party till someone brings the liquid nitrogen. He used this to basically make sangria slushies. Chef Bayless won the Quickfire challenge, but it really didn't matter. The audience had fun and a worthy cause got a nice bump in their coffers.

Having been grill deprived for most of my adult life, I am compensating now. Most evenings from May through September find me outside, tongs in hand. Having found my new religion, I had to find my new bible. It came in the form of Weber's Big Book of Grilling. I'm sure more experienced grill masters will scoff at such a pedestrian tome, but it has done me no wrong so far. The apple cider mop sauce baby back ribs are a particular favorite of mine. The spicy Texas rib eye is no slouch either.

Well, I have ribs to rub and sauces to simmer. Everyone have a wonderful Independence Day!

Aspen Food and Wine Festival: The Day Chef Nobu Blew Our Minds

2010-06-26T09:53:00.000-04:00

Day two promised to be a clone of day one. Some demos, some slam dancing in the grand tasting tent, a good dinner with good beverages. No signs, omens or portends indicated the course the day would take. A rapturous dinner was in store for us, our palates graced with a taste of near perfection.

Copious amounts of caffein washed away the lingering effects of last night’s wine pairings. Jacques Pepin, the master of classic culinary techniques, was the first event I had scheduled for the day. The buzz, from both excitement and the coffee, made the 20 minute wait interminable. Eventually the doors were thrown open and we were allowed in. Jacques Pepin and his daughter Claudine gave a demo. using their line of caviar as an ingredient. If time has diminished Jacques Pepin’s knife skills, it was certainly not noticeable to us mere mortals. Besides having mad skills, he is consummate educator and entertainer. The years have honed his stage skills to razor sharp edge. His blend of wit, wisdom He is also one of the nicest and most gracious people in the culinary world. His sense of humor had the audience laughing through out the event. The dynamic between Jacques and Claudine was a little, weird. Well, to be exact, the dynamic between Claudine and Jacques was a little, weird. Couldn't tell if it was a forced frustration with Jacques just for show, or if it is their normal relationship. The champagne bottle not cooperating with Claudine's sabering attempts did nothing for her mood.

After another trip through the mosh pit of the grand tasting tent, Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons gave a demo. They seemed to really enjoy cooking together as they whipped up dueling lamb dishes. Tom cooked a loin of lamb stuffed with homemade merguez sausage, while Gail made a quick dish using store bought merguez. Chef Colicchio's main message of the demo was for home cooks to learn how to butcher meat themselves to save money and have more flexibility.

For a change of pace, I left the world of cooking demos and headed over to the spirit world. The kind of spirits than can be reached with a cocktail shaker, not a Ouija board. The mixologist Tony Abu-Ganim took us on a historical tour of drinks made with gin. It was a fun romp through Ramos Gin Fizzes, Aviators and Corpse Revivers. It was an entertaining presentation. The cocktails certainly helped boost the amusement factor.

A few hours later, I made my way Matsushisa, Chef Nobu Matsuhisa's Aspen restaurant. I was prepared for a nice dinner paired with some good Sakes. I was not prepared for the food we actually ate. Each course got increasingly wonderful. Everyone at the table was simply agog as the great was improved upon. We thought we reached the pinnacle with the black cod cooked with miso butter. We were wrong. The Kobe beef course that came next brought us to the summit. Richly flavorful and tender as a mother's kiss. It was hard to wrap our minds around the concept of ethereal beef, but chewing it was close to chewing air.

We all floated back to our hotels, buoyed by the culinary afterglow of a truly supernatural meal.

Aspen Food and Wine Festival: So it Begins

2010-06-20T01:27:00.000-04:00

I started the event out in an inauspicious way, waiting in the wrong line. After correcting that minor error in judgement, due to a really bad night's sleep(or so I can keep telling myself), the event began in earnest. the first demo I attended was by the Chef Thomas Keller. His entrance into a room does not generate nervous energy, it produces a silent awe. He demoed three recipes from his cook book "Ad Hoc at Home." Well, the current chef at Ad Hoc in Yountville and an ex-sous chef from Ad Hoc did the demoing, Chef Keller handled the edification. He reiterated some of his favorite themes: learn good techniques, get good tools, get great ingredients. One really interesting topic he espoused on was the difference between seasoning and flavoring. Seasoning enhances the flavors that the ingredients themselves have. Salt and acid are the two main vehicles to achieve this. If you can taste the salt and/or the acid you are no longer seasoning, you are flavoring. Under this way of thinking pepper is never used in seasoning, only in flavoring. He made sure to drive this point home in several humorous exchanges with the audience.

Next on the agenda was to enter the cornucopia of chaos, The Grand Tasting. All I could say was wow and I am so glad my pass allowed me early access. Walking past the blocks of eager foodies ready to snap their jaws shut on whatever in on offer, I felt a wave of relief flow through my body. I would have about 45 minutes to make my way around the tasting while it was much less crowded. There was not much food on offer, but what was there was extraordinary. One standout was Blackberry Farms from Tennessee. The salumi made by Michael Sullivan was some of the best I have tasted. The man is passionate about his craft and it was entirely evident in his products.

The Grand Tasting Tent was awash in a sea of wine. There were enough areas, varietals, and styles available to keep an oenophile busy for weeks. I did not have weeks, so I just headed to what looked the most interesting. I was not disappointed as I discovered some new areas and producers to explore further. I really like the wines from the Alto Adige, an area in northern Italy. Those will receive some further exploring when I get home.

Mario Batali was next on the list. He cooked some relatively easy dishes from Linguria. He is very entertaining to watch. So entertaining in fact that you learn some great things without even noticing. Mario loves to impart his demoes with the whys and hows of Italian food culture and philosophy. This background gives the audience deeper insight into the whys and hows of Italian cooking.

Morimoto wowed the audiences with his nearly supernatural knife skills. Cutting paper thin slices of daikon radish or butchering a fish faster than you can tie your shoes resulted in the sounds of hundreds of jaws hitting the ground in unison.

The evening was capped off by an Italian dinner put on by Amex. The food created by the chef had a hard time competing with the wines presented by Sergio Esposito of the Italian Wine Merchants. Sergio's discussion of the wines became more, shall we say, spirited, as the night went on. Don't know what could have caused that, there were only like 7 wines poured with dinner.

The excellent company at the table capped off a stellar night as I made my way back to my hotel. Those four blocks seemed to have gotten longer during dinner.

Aspen Food and Wine Festival: The Prelude

2010-06-18T20:45:00.000-04:00

June in Aspen brings sun, wild flowers and most of the culinary world. For the past 28 years people with a passion for cooking, wine making, food growing, or just eating and drinking have gathered in the rarified air of Aspen, CO. Not rarified in the snooty sense, but rarified in the lack of oxygen at 8,000 feet sense.

The bulk of the program began today, but things got off to a great start last night. Courtesy of American Express, I attended a meet and greet with Mario Batali. We were able to taste food created from the recipes in his latest cook book, while drinking some exquisite Italian wines.

The meet and greet segued into the official opening party featuring food stations manned by Top Chef favorites. Jennifer, Eli and both Voltaggio brothers were dishing up dishes for the attendees. I must say, their food was very inventive and ultimately toothsome.

I dragged my jet lagged and sleep deprived body home to get ready for the next days events. Stay tuned...

BBQ, Burgoo and Bliss

2010-06-14T20:43:00.000-04:00

One weekend a year, a change comes over Madison Square Park. The question "What is that smell?" gets an answer you are delighted, not horrified, to hear. The ubiquitous pale blue haze hanging invites a deep inhale, not a call to the EPA. Out of the cacophony of entwined conversations, you hear more than a few "Y'alls." The annual Big Apple BBQ Block Party has arrived. The country's best pit masters hold court for two days of bbq, burgoo and bliss.

I arrived early Saturday morning to take a quick reconnaissance tour around the park. A crowd was already starting to form for the upcoming pork-a-palooza. I made my way to Ed Mitchell's and joined the already growing queue. The line moved quickly and I soon was dining on one of the greatest pleasures of porkdom. I looked up and saw what I thought was a porcine induced hallucination. There, clad in heavy rubber gloves, was Michael Pollan chopping pork into tiny pieces for Ed Mitchell. Yes, the Michael Freakin' Omnivore Dilemma Pollan. I had no idea of what to make of that, so I continued on my quest for low and slow cooked perfection.

I soon ran into my friend Kat who was busy working the Big Apple BBQ for work. After a chance encounter with a friend of hers, we found ourselves immersed in a wonderful conversation with Ed Mitchell. Ed has hogs raised to his own standards to be used for his bbq. The hogs are raised on pasture and given a high quality feed that Ed devised himself. He works closely with several organizations concerned with the living conditions of farm animals. The pork that Ed uses in his bbq has a superior taste to what is available commercially. Mr. Mitchell believes that the better you treat the animal, the better the animal will treat you. Now I know why Michael Pollan was up to his elbows in hog. He was getting a hands on lesson in sustainably raised pork.

Most of the pit masters at the Big Apple BBQ served up the usual offerings. Whole hogs, ribs, beef brisket and a sausage or two were the staples. Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn from Kentucky was serving up more of a regional specialty, mutton. Along with the mutton, they were serving another local Kentucky dish, burgoo. I was snapping a few photos when I was ushered into their cooking area to get a full lesson on how they cook their mutton and how they prepare burgoo. Burgoo is a thick soup of mutton and vegetables cooked for 6 hours, while being stirred every 15 minutes. The restaurant freely gives away their recipe because so few people are willing to stand around and stir a pot for that long. The mutton and burgoo were a nice counterpoint to the more usual being offered. a

While the consumption of bbq is the main attraction to the event, abundant other activities were there to keep one entertained while you digested your grub. A full slate of seminars and cooking demos kept one's mind fed. Beer and wine were ion tap to help wash down all that food.

The organizers of the event thoughtfully book many live music acts to help you dance off some of that food. The two bands I watched on Saturday were incredible. The first band was called Secret Country from Newark, NJ. Newark is about as far away from rural as one could possibly get. In fact, I just looked up rural in the dictionary and the definition was not Newark, NJ. This probably helped form their unique style of playing. Try to imagine the love child of Hank Williams Jr. and The Ramones. Country music played with breakneck speed and a punk aesthetic.

The other artist I really enjoyed was Carolyn Wonderland from Austin, TX. She possesses an incredible voice, amazing guitar chops, and a very droll sense of humor. The audience wouldn't let her leave the stage. She had to sing an a cappella number while the roadies set up the stage for the next band to keep the audience satisfied.

I always have a good time at this event, but I had an extraordinary time this year. It could have been the bands. The food certainly was great. The icy sauvignon blanc provided a welcome respite from the heat. But I think the moment that pushed this year to its apex was when I asked Michael Pollan why he was working at Ed Mitchell's. "I have to have a day job." was his reply as he want back to chopping.

It's Been How Many Years Since I Graduated? Better Hand Me a Beer.

2010-06-06T20:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday I had to grapple with a difficult concept, it's been 25 years since I graduated college. Stevens Institute of Technology having untold empathy for its alumni, scheduled both a wine tasting and a beer seminar for Alumni Weekend to help them in their transition to dotage.

Last year's wine tasting left me a little parched, so I opted for the beer seminar to celebrate, make that mourn, the fact that it's been 25 years since I was a carefree frat boy. Well, as carefree as 20 credits and a major league senior project regarding a dual crystal x-ray crystallography examination of microplastic deformations in 440 stainless steel could be.

I so made the correct choice. The audience and the presenters were in full on let's have fun mode. The theme of the seminar was beer made in breweries that are at least as old as Stevens, 140 years. The main presenter, Neil, was both informative and entertaining. The host, Dave Manhas, kept everyone in a festive mood with his entertaining banter and his best game show host skills during the trivia question sections.

Everyone was getting into the seminar. I'm not suggesting that the beer had acted as a social lubricant, but the audience participation did seem to pick up as the event progressed. We did get to taste a gamut of beers from around the world, representing many of the styles that exist. My two personal favorites were the Chimay Red and the double chocolate stout. Both were far cries from the usual mass produced domestic beers. The double chocolate stout could possible recruit a whole new demographic to beer drinking with its chocolate and espresso flavors.

I left the seminar entertained, informed, and a bit relaxed. I was also toting the new bottle opener I won by answering a trivia question. If only my undergrad classes here were like this.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T20:03:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to wish everyone a great Memorial Day. Amidst the beer, burgers and barbecuing, just take a moment to reflect on the reason for the day.

That being said, here's the first rib porn of the season:

Same Sparkle, Less Lira

2010-05-27T21:49:00.000-04:00

I love Champagne. I would drink it to celebrate the start of the evening news. Realizing an exciting fact like it was Tuesday, I would send corks flying. I would brush my teeth with it. I would dab it on as after shave. I have often and loudly declared my never ending love to it. Champagne is intrinsicly perfect except for one issue, it is a bit pricey. Luckily, like the beautiful ugly person in romantic comedies, there is a more accessible hottie. When the sparkling wine urge hits hard, but the cash reserves are light, there is Prosecco.

Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine made from the eponymous grape. The wine, mainly produced in the Veneto region, may date all the way back to Roman times. However, Prosecco did not see much US importation until 2000. Once it landed on these shores, Prosecco's popularity took off faster than a flying cork.

Sparkling wine can be produced using a variety of methods. Prosecco is made using what is known as the Charmat method. This process is less expensive than the traditional method that true Champagnes must use. Sparkling wine needs to undergo a secondary fermentation. This is what produces the sparkles in the sparkling wine. No bubbles, no bubbly. In a true French Champagne, the secondary fermentation must take place in the bottle. Each bottle of wine needs to have yeast and some form of sugar added to it. It is then capped with a standard bottle cap like you find on a beer. The yeast feasts on the sugar producing the gas to form the bubbles. In a Prosecco, they just dump the still wine into large tanks with sugar and yeast to undergo the secondary fermentation. This bulk process is much less expensive than doing it bottle by bottle. Once the secondary fermentation is complete, the sparkling wine is bottled and rushed to market. Prosecco waits for no one, it is best enjoyed as fresh as possible.

So, what does this stuff taste like? It has a nice bright, brisk taste, with fruit flavors front and center. Prosecco lacks the bready, biscuity, yeasty flavors that a Champagne has. While Prosecco does not clone the Champagne taste experience, its own unique flavor is highly enjoyable. Prosecco is most often enjoyed as an aperitif, but I find it quite food friendly. The acidy and the carbonation make it a perfect accompaniment to fried foods.

I know, I got you all excited by Prosecco and you are just waiting to be let down. You are expecting me to tell you this stuff is a bargain at $30 a pop. No fears there, Prosecco is a steal. You will be hard pressed to find one retailing for more than $20. The majority are under $15 a bottle. The nice pink one in the above photo was $10.99.

When the mood to celebrate hits and you wallet has more cobwebs than cash, you now know what to do. Pick up that bottle of Prosecco, pop the cork, and you won't miss the Cristal. Well, you may miss it a little, but think of all the bling you can buy with your savings.

Schramsberg Sparkling Wine

2010-05-17T20:32:00.001-04:00

The open door let out a rush of cold air, drawing us in surer than any siren's song. The AC slowly cooled our heat addled brains into rational thought and we began to notice the photos on the wall. Nixon, Brezhnev, Carter, Princess Di all smiled back at us, glass in hand, toasting. What filled these glasses besides history? It was Schramsberg sparkling wine.

Schramsberg's history is impossible to separate from that of Napa Valley's. In the nascent years of wine making in the area, Schramsberg was there. The property first produced wines in the 1860's under the leadership of barber/wine maker/German immigrant Jacob Schram. Some one hundred years later, the Davies bought the rundown property, started making sparkling wines and started making history.

Keeping a sharp eye out for the turn, you leave the heavily traveled Route 29 and head uphill and though the woods. Grandma isn't there to great you at the top, but the statue of a very happy frog, "Riddlers Night Off", is. You enter the mercifully air conditioned waiting room and the adventure begins.

A knowledgeable tour guide led us out of the reception area into the caves. These are honest to goodness, "Be quite, sparkling wine sleeping", caves. Dark, cool, moss hanging off the wall caves. Caves filled with thousands of bottles of sparkling wines awaiting their time to shine.

The one thing that really stood out about Schramsberg is that they riddle they're bottles by hand. In this day of automation, Schramsberg still has a man turn the bottles by hand, slightly angling them up, until all the sediment migrates to the neck of the bottle. The neck is then frozen and the bottle opened, the frozen plug of dead yeast flying out, leaving the crystal clear sparkling wine behind. I've met the riddler, and he looks at least 20 years younger than his 62 years. Maybe there is a new fitness class in here. Spend an hour turning bottles in a rack then rehydrate with sparkling wine. I thing that class may be a winner.

Real caves, world leaders and hand riddling does not exactly spell out a recipe for a bargain wine. The flagship vintage sparkling wines do command a premium price. A sip or two confirms that this was money well spent. They also offer non-vintage sparkling wines under $25 for those less important celebrations like say, Tuesday.

In this era of endless self promotion, Schramsberg has quietly been producing some of this country's best sparkling wines. A visit to the winery is one of Napa's true must do activities. Who knows, if that political career of yours pans out, it may be your inauguration photo on the wall.

If you do plan on going, you must reserve a tour time. The tour costs $40 but I must say is worth it. You can get all the tour related information at: http://www.Schramsberg.com/visit.html

It's Hot in the Dog House

2010-05-13T22:19:00.000-04:00

Due to a bit of a spat, your's truly has been in the dog house lately. In order to counteract the tangible chill in the air, I've been making some spicy food. Since E wouldn't eat anything I made for her anyway, I might as well grab the cayenne and have at it.

E doesn't like spicy food, so my hands are pretty much tied when I start eyeing Cajun and Thai recipes. Since I am only cooking for myself, I can go to town, Scoville units be damned! I whipped up the jambalaya we made a week or so ago in the Cajun and Creole class a few weeks ago. I was nearly giddy as I put in the full amount of cayenne pepper and maybe, just maybe mind you, a little extra. The dish was perfect. It certainly had enough kick to make you sit up and notice, but not enough to make you lunge for a beverage.

Having had leftover jambalaya for lunch yesterday, I was not too peckish when dinner time came around. When I did start to get hungry, I couldn't stop the image of a shrimp cocktail from swimming around in my brain. This was a double whammy dish for me, spice and seafood. I whipped up some homemade cocktail sauce, cooked up some shrimp and entered Nirvana. It was just what the doctor ordered, spicy, lemony and briny.

Maybe being in the dog house is not such a bad thing....

When It's Raining, Raid the Fridge

2010-05-06T21:10:00.001-04:00

I was so wanting pasta on Tuesday. Not some fancy or even authentic Italian dish, but more of an Italian American Sunday "gravy" kind of meal. The kind of slow cooked sauce, filled with meaty treats, that graces the tables of Italian American families. I looked out the window and the skies were the color of impending doom. Seconds later, rain was falling in torrents. Even though the supermarket is literally across the street, I it would border on insanity to venture out in this. I grabbed a Lydia Bastianich cookbook and started browsing.

Within seconds I ran across a recipe that was perfect. It was almost as if Lydia poked around my kitchen and came up with this dish. Well, it wasn't 100% perfect, but it was close. I had the pancetta in the fridge from about a week ago, I always have cans of tomatoes and of course I have onions, lots of onions.

My take was not 100% faithful to Lydia, but I made do. I did not have fresh basil and I did not have whole, canned San Marzano tomatoes. I just had dried basil and good old canned Jersey tomatoes, crushed. I also did not have spaghetti, only short pasta. E hates long pasta, so I just buy the short shapes like ziti, farfalle, etc. I had this open bag of this funky snail shaped pasta that I pressed into duty.

In the end, it was pretty darn good. I think it was more tomatoey than Lydia envisioned, but the taste was there. The hollow parts of the snail shells filled up with the sauce making them an unexpected hit. Into each life, a little rain must fall. This time, it made me cook a memorable meal, while staying dry.

Recipe adapted from Lydia Bastianich
Ingredients

1 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium onion, sliced
6 ounces of pancetta, unrolled and cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon of dried basil
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes(or to taste)
Salt to taste(be cautious, the pancetta is salty so be sure to taste)
Parmesan cheese to taste
One pound of pasta

Sweat the onions until soft, 2-4 minutes
Add the pancetta and cook, stirring often for 4 minutes
Add the oregano, basil and red pepper and cook for 1 minute
Add tomatoes and stir well
Bring to boil, reduce to simmer and cook for 20 minutes

In the meantime, bring water to a boil and add pasta of your choice
Cook till al dente according to package directions
Drain pasta reserving one cup of cooking water
Put pasta in pot with sauce
If sauce looks too thick, add some of the pasta cooking liquid to thin it out
Cook pasta in sauce for a few minutes
Add cheese and taste sauce. If salt is needed add more cheese or add salt
Alternately, if you are not serving an army. Cook less than one pound of pasta. Add desired amount of sauce to pasta and cook, reserving extra sauce for another meal.
Serve with additional cheese on the side.

Summertime, and the Living is Sweaty

2010-05-02T19:33:00.000-04:00

The first salvo of summertime temperatures has been fired here in Hoboken. In order to retaliate, I got up extra early on Saturday morning to get the grill ready for the upcoming season. An hour and lots of elbow grease expended, the Weber is ready for a summertime of flame kissed goodness.

The first order of business was to procure a good steak and some wonderful asparagus. A nice ribeye was seasoned with a barbeque rub and cooked to medium rare. The asparagus was hit with salt, pepper and some good olive oil and quickly grilled. The meal was simple, tasty, and served as the perfect opening to the summer grilling season.

Sunday was the semi-annual Hoboken Art and Music Festival. Sunday also saw temperatures in the mid to upper 80's. If this was July, I would have thought nothing of it But since this was only May 2nd, the body and mind was not ready for it. I did stay to catch some fun sets by The Doughboys and Purple Knif. The Doughboys cranked out some blues based originals as well as some classic rock classics. Purple Knif performed garage and surf rock instrumentals, some of my favorite types of music. The heat just proved too much for me and I did not stay for Fountains of Wayne. Yes, the Fountains of Wayne, the festival always gets some fairly big name act to perform. For free. Yes, I am lucky to live here.

I arrived home to some welcome air conditioning. Sam the Cat seems to be happiest sprawled out on the coolest surface he can find. I marinaded some chicken thighs in lemon juice, olive oil, thyme, bay leaf and garlic. By the time I grilled these, the outside temperature had dropped to the 70's. so it was quite pleasant outside. These ribs just hit the spot. All the flavors from the marinade matched perfectly with the grilling flavors to make a quite toothsome dish. Can't wait to see what the rest of the season has in store.

Flash! You Can Cook Cajun and Creole Food Without Shouting Bam!

2010-04-28T22:31:00.000-04:00

My love of Cajun and Creole cuisine go way back to those olden dark BE years. You know, that ancient period that was before Emeril. My first forays into this style of cooking was informed by the very low budget PBS shows of Justin Wilson. This safety engineer by day, Cajun chef by night, created a fun gumbo of a show by mixing in equal parts of education, showmanship and Bayou humor. The end of his show usually resulted in a mad dash to the grocery store to assemble the ingredients to whip up that day's spicy and garlicky wonder.

Fast forward to today and Emeril has a frickin' variety show of all things, Justin Wilson has gone to the Great Bayou in the Sky and I don't get to eat much Cajun food anymore. E doesn't like food that is spicy and she doesn't really like seafood. How does someone in my situation get in touch with their inner Cajun? By taking a Cajun and Creole cooking class of course!

When I saw that the Astor Center was offering a Cajun and Creole class, I signed up quicker than you could say "***!" Oops I almost said the banned B**! word. Only of course I didn't say "***!" because I grew up in the BE era remember. I didn't know how much I would learn, I only knew I would have fun and have my hot sauce hand liberated.

The class attracted the usual diverse crowd, from people that don't cook to those thinking of opening their own restaurants. Many of the people lived in New Orleans and/or had family from the city. This of course, is the stuff that I love. People connecting to a place, person or family through cooking. As you know, I feel eating Grandma's gumbo is one thing, trying to recreate Grandma's gumbo is another. Bringing the family together to help you in this quest? Well, we all know that answer to that question.

The class was taught by Chef Emily Casey, making her Astor Center debut. She was a font of knowledge about Louisiana culture and cuisine, as well as a engaging educator. We broke into groups to attack the days recipes and the cooking commenced.

I was in a great group of people and we had a ton of fun making a gumbo and a spinach salad. Everyone jumped right in prepping the ingredients. Soon our shrimp and crab meat gumbo was simmering and our strawberry jam vinaigrette was keeping cool in the fridge. Yes, you read that correctly, strawberry jam. The dressing ended up being a perfect foil to the spinach, pecan and strawberry salad.

While we tackled the gumbo, other groups took on jambalaya, deep fried oysters and shrimp stuffed mirliton. The oysters were the first dish ready and the group pounced on them just as quick as they were being fried. The remoulade sauce that was served with them was spot on in terms of flavor and spice. A selection of wines was chosen to go with the dishes we were about to eat. A very nice, minerally Muscadet was served with the oysters. This was just a perfect match to this dish. The wine on its own was very nice as well. For once, I enjoyed the least expensive wine the most! That's not to say that the other wines were not great in their own right.

To top things off, we enjoyed a decadent Bananas Foster. Rum, brown sugar and fire make just about anything taste good.

All too soon, it was time to leave our virtual Mardi Gras and make it back to the real world. But one thing we did prove was it was possible to create a table full of Louisiana goodness and not once shout ***!

Losing One's Focus

2010-04-20T22:16:00.000-04:00

There is no one correct way to photograph food. Depending on the purpose of the shot, you have myriad ways to approach how you will take the photograph. A shot to illustrate a step in a recipe will be taken in a much different manner than one destined for your kitchen's wall. You need to have a vision of what you visually want to convey. You need to be focused totally on your photo, but your photo need not be totally in focus.

If your photo is not for how to or documentary purposes, using selective focus may result in a more successful image. It can be used to highlight one part of a dish or to eliminate a distracting background. Often, the results are dramatic.

Here is an image where I strived to have everything in focus:

Not the most compelling of photos seen here in Sautoir Land.

Here is the same image using selective focus:

I find the second image much more interesting.

This is all great you may ask, but how can I do it? Glad you asked dear reader. All SLR's will be capable of doing it as well as many point and shoots. It requires you to take your camera off the fully automatic mode and move it to what is called aperture priority(It can be done in manual of course, but this is the easiest way to obtain it). You will have to consult your manual on how to do it on your specific camera, but most cameras will have a control dial on top. This dial is where you have the different modes your camera can shoot in, marked by cryptic glyphs. You will turn this dial to Av on Canon cameras. Most other makers will have this mode marked with an A. This mode allows you to set the aperture on the camera while the camera sets the shutter speed. If your eyes started to glaze over, just stick with me. I will spare you the camera geek speak and just set you up to take photos.

You now have to decide how much of your dish you want in focus. If you want a lot of your dish in focus, dial in a large aperture number. How you adjust aperture varies by camera and lens. Setting the aperture to f8 or f11 will have your entire plate pretty much in focus. Dialing in a small aperture, like f2, will have much less of you dish in focus. If the part of your dish that you want in focus is not in the center of your frame, here is what you have to do. This technique should work on most cameras. Aim at what you want in focus and press the shutter half way down. You should get some audible confirmation of focus. Holding the button halfway down, compose the photo you want to take. When you have the shot set up to your artistic ideal, press the shutter button the rest of the way. What you wanted in focus should be in focus and the rest should be artfully blurry.

Keep practicing until you get the desired effect. Go ahead and play with the aperture setting as well. In fact, you should play with all the wonderful things your camera can do. Hey, you paid for those features. Most important of all, have fun. If you don't like what you see, just delete it. Remember the number 1 secret of great photographers is to only show other people great photos.

No Whining About Sonoma County Wines

2010-04-17T10:37:00.000-04:00

Ah, Sonoma Valley, Napa's less glitzy, but in no way lesser neighbor. Sonoma conjures fun, vibrant, but ultimately bittersweet memories for me. It takes me back to my explorations of the backroads of Sonoma some 20 years ago. Cruising along country lanes with my good friend Marty and his wife, searching out vineyards like we were on a oenophile's Easter egg hunt. Marty is no longer with us, but memories of those sun and wine filled afternoons live on.

A recent dinner at the James Beard House brought Sonoma Valley to the forefront of my thoughts. Called "Sonoma in the City" it celebrated the food and, of course, the wines of the region. The evening of the dinner was unseasonable pleasant for mid-April. The welcome weather allowed us to enjoy the appetizer hour outside. Those of you who abide in less urban environs do not realize how much a nice outdoor space warms the hearts of us city dwellers. We enjoyed three small bites, prepared by three Sonoma chefs. All the dishes were good, but the smoked sturgeon and Tsar Nicoulai caviar push-ups were a stand out. Imagine your favorite childhood ice cream truck treat, not filled with some sweet frozen delight, but filled with a smoky, creamy and salty one. It was eaten the same way as those summer classics, pushing up a stick to access the wonders inside.

The reception set up the trend that was continued throughout the dinner, multiple wines served with each course. The appetizers were paired with a Gloria Ferrer sparking wine and a Pride Mountain Vineyard Viognier. These were both terrific wines and matched the dishes well. The other courses, except for dessert, were also served with multiple wines, allowing the diners to compare and contrast among them. This was a welcome touch and sparked many conversations at the table. Having the wine maker from Dutton-Goldfield at the table added another dimension to the discussion.

Each of the four courses were prepared by a different Sonoma County chef. Many of the ingredients used to prepare these dishes were also from Sonoma County. The wonderful duck, lamb, foie gras and other succulent edibles showcased the fact that Sonoma's bounty is not limited to grapes. A standout course for me was the slow roasted Liberty duck leg cooked by Chefs Duskie Estes and John Stewart. The duck along with the chicories, almonds and sour cherry vinaigrette hit all my favorite tastes.

Sonoma will always have a special place in my heart. The "Sonoma in the City" brought back some very good old memories and made some good new memories on its own.

John T Edge at "Beard on Books"

2010-04-10T09:23:00.001-04:00

Southern food culture has found its Boswell in John T. Edge. Whether the topic is fried chicken, apple pie or race, John T. writes in a compelling and engaging manner. Few things can trump reading John T. Edge. One of those is hearing him speak, which I had the privileged to do so on Thursday.

The periodical, "Oxford American", recently published its second food edition. John T. served as guest editor for this volume. He was invited to speak at the monthly "Beard on Books" event at the James Beard House. "Beard on Books" is a series of events where authors read from their food related publications and engage in a conversation with the audience. These events are usually well attended, but John T. brought in a standing room only crowd.

John T. started off with telling the audience about pitching his first article to the "Oxford American". He was going to New Orleans to work as a Lucky Dog vendor. Lucky Dog is the ubiquitous food cart found throughout the French Quarter. They took a chance on him, and now five James Beard Award nominations later, it appeared the gamble paid off.

John T. had some of the other contributors to the issue with him to read from their pieces. Tod Kliman's piece on the ever in motion chef Peter Chang was a standout. An award winning chef back in his homeland of China, Chef Chang moves from non-descript Chinese restaurant to non-descript Chinese restaurant almost on a whim. This leads to a gustatory hide and seek game for the author, eager to eat more of Chef Chang's creations.

It left me salivating to devour the rest of the stories in the issue.

Digital Photo I at the ICP

2010-03-31T20:44:00.000-04:00

I've been taking photos for a really long time. Except for a brief lesson way back in a undergrad materials science lab, I have never had any formal instruction in photography. Wanting to really learn more about the art and science of photography, I decided to take a class at The International Center of Photography.

I wanted to enroll in Digital Photography I. Looking at their schedule, I was disappointed to find that none of the timeframes for the class fit my schedule. I then spied Digital Photography I Intensive. This crams the 10 weeks of the normal class into two weekends. I would be in class for 7 hours a day for two straight weekends. I crossed my fingers hoping that this would not be pure torture and clicked on the enroll button.

Luck was on my side this time as it turned out to be very worthwhile. We seated at a workstation featuring a Power Mac, a scanner, and a very large Epson printer. After introductions, the instructor ,Deanna Lawson, jumped right in.

The hours flew by. Most of the time we were seated in the classroom, some of the time we were shooting outside. Some of the technical matters I already knew, but much of the lessons were about seeing. I started looking at light and shadow, rest and motion, in different ways. I was also forced to shoot photos outside of my usual milieu, which was both difficult and liberating if that makes any sense.

The people taking the class ran the gamut in experience with photography. Some were old pros already taking some stunning shots. Others were pretty much pure beginners. Everyone seemed to get better as the class progressed.

We had to come up with a final project, shooting pretty much what we wanted to do. Surprise, I chose to photograph food. Some of the shots were good, some were so-so. But I certainly learned a lot and I am now looking at the world in a different light, literally.

All the shots here are from the final project. I want to end this post by saying thanks to our great teacher Deanna Lawson.

Bacon and Bourbon Expo at Astor Center

2010-03-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

Some people head out on expeditions to find troves of treasure. Others go out in search of a paradise on Earth . Me, I found both a quick subway ride away at the Bacon and Bourbon Expo.

Judging by the crowd gathered outside the doors waiting for the event to start, I was not the only one going to Astor Center in search of pork and potent potables. I must say, the crowd was very enthusiastic, even before the bourbon tasting began. What was it about these two great tastes that taste great together, that was driving these people to distraction?

The very first taste of salty, piggy goodness that hit my mouth elicited a porcine epiphany. While your normal grocery store bacon is pretty damn good, the bacon at the Expo was simply on another plane. The artisans at the Expo were trying to perfect something that is pretty close to perfect as it is. In many cases, they certainly took bacon that much higher up the scale. Many of the bacons here were also made from heritage breed pork, adding yet another reason to seek out the wonderful products from Neuske's, Flying Pig Farms, D'Artagnan and Black Pig Meat Company. The average plate of bacon only lasted about 2 minutes before being denuded of even the smallest bacon bit.

The bourbon and other whiskeys held there own against the bacon's stiff competition. I was not familiar with many of the brands available. Tasting them was a very pleasant surprise. While I enjoyed most of the bourbons I tasted, the one that really made me sit up and take notice was Black Maple Hill Small Batch Bourbon. I should have made tasting notes, navigating the crowd and juggling my camera and a glass of bourbon made writing a little difficult at best. I do remember taking a sip and just being amazed.

Micther's was another stand out. They brought bourbons, an American whisky and a rye. They all were excellent and provided a spectrum of tastes to try. The American whisky was light bodied and very smooth. The polar opposite of the peppery and zesty palate of the rye.

I was pretty surprised to see Four Roses there. I didn't recall Four Roses even making a bourbon and I don't ever remember using the words good and Four Roses in the same sentence. I was quickly proved wrong on all accounts. They are trying to revive the brand here in the states after becoming the best selling bourbon in Japan.

Having had my fill of bacon and bourbon, it was time to leave this Valhalla of victuals. I made my way down Lafayette Street, making a mental note to be sure to make the 2011 expo.

Sometimes the Food I Love Is Not So Haute

2010-03-23T21:54:00.000-04:00

This post was going to be the rare restaurant review. We wanted to go back to Tabla to see how the place has changed since the major change to their menu. No longer was it two restaurants sharing the same roof, but one unified entity. In the past, the downstairs was Bread Bar, serving Indian home cooking in a casual atmosphere. Upstairs, was the more upscale Tabla serving food with an Indian accent. The makeover has the whole place serving one menu, now with al a carte options available. We did the Tour of Tabla tasting menu and it was great. Maybe too much food for just two people, but we did not complain. I was ready to write up a glowing review of the evening when a funny thing happened; I made a sloppy joe.

One bite of this savory, sweet, and oh yes sloppy sandwich made me one happy camper. I was 10 years old again, hungrily wolfing down a sloppy joe after a full day of bike riding and woods exploring, eager to scare myself silly with what ever B movie fare was being aired on Chiller Theater or Creature Features.

This is not to suggest that the dinner at Tabla was upstaged by some comfort food. I just wanted to bring to light the dichotomy of most foodies. We are equally happy enjoying the sublime food of Floyd Cardoz at Tabla or going through a fistful of napkins as we savor a sloppy joe. And its not just us. Those big time chefs are happy chowing down on burgers and fries or other such comfort foods. Did you see the photo of Joel Robuchon eating at In and Out Burger? Did you know that Thomas Keller's favorite meal is a roast chicken? While the more complicated fare out there fulfills a need in out lives, a little taste of home and childhood fills our souls.

Passion and Intensity: The Natural Wine Event at Astor Center

2010-03-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

The neatly trimmed rows of vines, going on for what seems like infinity. The cellar full of bottles, awaiting there turn to wow the world. The winemaker, casting his spell over humble grape juice to turn it into some magical elixir.

Alas, what I wrote above is but fiction. The actual practice of growing grapes and making wine is not quite so bucolic. There are hail storms, hungry birds, insects, molds, plagues of frogs. Well, maybe not plagues of frogs, but a vineyard faces myriad hazards in creating a bottle of wine.

Now, to face these challenges without the use of many modern techniques, takes a certain kind of wine maker. A winemaker full of passion and intensity.

The 6th Annual Natural Wine Event drew wine makers from France, Italy and the United States. Being able to talk to a the person that created the wine you are currently tasting is kind of a two edged sword. While you are able to prod the maker directly with questions about the wine, you may want to think twice about saying anything too negative about the wines. These are passionate people and these wines are like their children.

The fact that all these wines were natural wines is what set this event apart from most wine tastings. No insecticides, fungicides, etc. are used on the grapes. Very little human intervention in the vinification process. These are high risk wines. It is very easy to loose a whole years work due to some pest or unusual weather condition.

Now, in the end, it all comes down to are the wines any good. In my opinion, all the wines were at least good, several of them rose to the great category. One particular favorite of mine was the 2005 Mas au Schiste from Rimbert in the St, Chinian in France. The mix of red fruit and mineral flavors makes this quite an interesting wine. At just under $20 a bottle, not a wallet buster.

When I inherit that large fortune from my unknown rich uncle, I may attempt to make it into a small one by purchasing a winery. Till then, I think I'll let some of these talented people continue to make my wine for me.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-03-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

"Honey, do you know what you can for me?" asked E. "No, what can I do for you?", I replied, fearing for the worst. Was there some horrible chore awaiting me somewhere? Did Sam the Cat leave us a "present" outside of his litter box? E replied, "You can make me peanut butter cookies and put some chocolate in them as well. You have all that chocolate laying around." Ah yes, since I go to many events, I get many gift bags. Inevitably, one of the objects in the bag is a bar or two of chocolate. The past few months have seen me amass quite the collection of chocolate. A pretty good state of affairs if you ask me.

I head into the kitchen and start gathering the ingredients. I immediately notice that I do not have enough butter to make the cookies. Shocking, I know. I'm sure you all have images of the tons of butter I have stored throughout the condo, just in case I have to make 50 gallons of hollandaise sauce. But alas, at the moment of the cookie making, I was down to a scant half stick. I was about to head to the door to head to the A&P across the street, when E told me to just use her whipped butter. Over the past few weeks, E has managed to forget that she has like a case of whipped butter at home and purchased some more. Reluctantly, I started to make the cookies.

The cookie dough looked dry when I got it all together. I formed a ball from some of the dough, so I continued. When I tried to flatten out the first ball, it just crumbled apart. I reformed it into a ball and just put the sheet pan in the oven. When I closed the door and started the timer, it hit me, 1/3 of a cup of whipped butter is not the same as 1/3 of a cup of stick butter. Oops! I crossed my fingers and hoped that the results would be edible.

In fact, they were quite good. I think I will revert back to stick butter next time, but the chocolate did add a nice addition level of flavor. I adapted a recipe from the venerable "Joy of Cooking" for these cookies. If you're playing along at home, here's the recipe:

1 1/2 Cups of all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

4 ounces bitter sweet chocolate

1 large egg

1 cup peanut butter(Smooth or chunky)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift together the flour and the baking soda. Beat the sugar, brown sugar and butter together. Beat in the chocolate, egg, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture. Make 1 inch balls and place on backing sheet about 2 inches apart. Lining the baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat will help greatly. You can always just grease the baking sheets. Flatten the the balls into disks if you wish. If you leave them in balls, you will need to cook them a little longer. Cook for 10 - 12 minutes if flattened out. Let them sit for a few minutes, then remove them to a rack to cool. Try not to eat all of the cookies in one sitting.

Visions of Pulled Pork Dance in My Head

2010-02-27T15:06:00.000-05:00

While we are digging out from yet another huge storm, I stare out longingly at my grill. Oh to fell the heat of fire and smell the apple wood smoke. Why am I so fixated on outdoor cooking in the midst of a brutal NJ winter? The fast passes for the Big Apple BBQ are already on sale!

The Big Apple BBQ sees Madison Square Park turned into low and slow central as some of the best pit masters from around the country arrive with their massive cookers in tow. Along with the massive cookers come massive crowds hungry for the succulent, barbecued manna. To somewhat ease your wait, you can purchase a pass ahead of time. The pass is good for $100 worth of food and beverages. Plus, you get access to somewhat shorter lines. In the past, they went for the fact value of $100, but this year they raised the price to $125. While I am bit angry at this, I have been in those lines. And $25 seems cheap compared to doing that again.

So, round up some BBQ fan friends, divvy up the cost. Or, wear comfortable shoes. Really, really comfortable shoes! See you there June 12 and 13.

To Cook, Perchance to Steam

2010-02-20T19:18:00.000-05:00

Why? A simple three letter word that packs worlds of context into its meager letter count. A word that has caused the vexation of countless parents. A simple query that can be oh so difficult to answer. In the fact of all this, I will still post the question, "Why do we cook?".

I know that cooking affords me some quiet time to just let slip into a Zen like state prepping dinner. I know that it gives me a sense of connection to everyone who has ever cooked, back to that caveman who first flung a piece of wooly mammoth into the fire. It gives me a may to show my love to my friends and family by preparing them a special meal. It makes a holiday feel like a holiday for me, manning the stove as my father before me. It is something that I have always done and something I hope to always do.

With so many food options just a car ride or a phone call away, making the deliberate decision to cook may seem like an odd choice. Of course, I feel different and will leave you with this thought. Like a person, take them out to dinner. Love a person, cook them dinner.

Food Writer Conference at the Roger Smith Hotel

2010-02-14T08:34:00.000-05:00

Standing on a corner waiting for a bus at 7:30 in the morning. A Saturday morning. A cold, gray, Saturday morning. It's the kind of situation that leads one to evaluate their motivations. Do I really want to go to this food writers conference or do I want to crawl back into bed? The appearance of the NYC bound bus made the decision for me. Sometimes buses are smarter than people, because it was a one of the best conferences I've attended.

The only thing I knew about the Roger Smith Hotel was the gallery they have on the corner of 47th Street and Lexington Avenue that always has some very modern art. The interior was a mixture of old time hotel and hip Soho art gallery. A bit of a strange combination, but for this space it worked. I picked up my conference package and made a beeline for a much needed cup of coffee.

The conference was organized by my food history professor Andrew Smith. Since Andy seems to know everyone that has ever written at least one coherent sentence about food, the panels were packed with a veritable pantheon of the culinary authors and auteurs.

The panel discussions were incredible and the 90 minute time slots flew by. Some really insightful and eye opening subjects were discussed. How writing online is more akin to writing for broadcast than writing for old fashioned print magazines. The shorter form pieces written for internet consumption are leading to magazines running shorter pieces. Text alone online will not cut it, online writers need to include multimedia content.

A standout among the panelists was David Leite. He has been blogging for 11 years. Yes, that is correct, 11 years. His mixture of insight into the online and print media worlds, along with his engaging delivery was the apex of the conference for me.

There was also many opportunities to meet the other attendees and panelists. The attendees were just as fascinating and insightful as the panelists so many great conversations were taking place outside of the scheduled programs. Running into friends that such as Lexi of lightheartedlocavore.com, only added to the conference experience.

Videos of the conference should be online soon. When they are, I will supply links to the presentations.

Duckhorn Decoy Wine

2010-02-10T21:32:00.000-05:00

Some of my favorite Napa Valley wines are made by Duckhorn. Their luscious and complex merlots would even make Miles from "Sideways" change his opinion of the grape. Greatness does not come cheap, so the wonderful Duckhorn wines sit in the wine rack waiting for just that right occasion. That occasion may be let's say, Tuesday or a new episode of "House", but some event none the less.

Their winery is a must stop for my annual pilgrimage to Napa. Their tasting room is in such a beautiful structure and the entire tasting experience is just wonderful. You sit down at a table and the wonderful wines appear along with a very knowledgeable server to guide you through the tasting. It certainly beats standing elbow to elbow at some long bar hoping the staff notices you and deems you worthy of trying their wines.

The Duckhorn people know that their wine is expensive and have been offering a lower price label Decoy for some time now. Up until recently, Decoy has been a blend of grapes. Now, they are offering single varietal wines, still at affordable prices. I was not aware of this till I was buying some wine at my favorite local merchant. I had a bottle of Decoy in my basket, just thinking that is was the red wine blend of old. When he rang up the bottle, he said "You are going to love this, we just got this in." I looked at him perplexed knowing that I had purchased a bottle of Decoy just last week. I look down at the label and saw that it was marked cabernet sauvignon. I took my purchases home, eager to try this new Decoy.

It did not disappoint in any way, shape or form. I was a beautiful wine, showing off all those wonderful black fruit characteristics of a cab, but with soft enough tannins to enjoy now. I went out a obtained a Decoy merlot and was similarly impressed. While theses wines still retail for about $22 a bottle, they give you a good amount of the much more expensive Duckhorn wine experience.

Head to your local wine merchant and procure yourself a bottle of Decoy. Hurray, there is a Tuesday coming up.

No, I Wasn't Ready for my Closeup

2010-01-30T10:09:00.000-05:00

A quick update to my last post. I saw a link to a video online of Chef Daniel Boulud talking to Chef Nate Appleman. When I watched it, I was surprised to see that it was a video of me and Chef Boulud talking to Nate. I guess my 15 minutes of fame countdown clock has started.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/video.

I've been taking advantage of NYC Restaurant Week. Hit up Blue Smoke, Danny Meyer's BBQ place on Monday. As is always the case there, ate way too much of the wonderful fare. Taking a cab the few blocks to the PATH train home did cross my mind.

We hit Tao for lunch on Thursday. Tao is an Asian-fusion restaurant where the food has to compete for attention with a giant statue of Buddha and its hipper than hip clientele. I'm glad to say that at our lunch the food won.

The alumni association of my alma mater, Stevens Institute of Technology, held a scotch tasting event. Even though I find myself on campus a lot, every time I go I get that anxious "I should be doing work" feeling. Happily, that feeling went away by about scotch number three. Not sure how many it would take to remove the memories of Theoretical Chemistry I and II, but it would be much more than advisable.

Citymeals-on-Wheels Benefit at Bar Pleiades

2010-01-23T13:58:00.000-05:00

2.1 million meals. Just let that figure soak in for a minute. It's kind of hard to try to visualize that amount of food, isn't it? That is the number of meals that Citymeals-on-Wheels delivered in 2009. That is the extent of the need of people whose illness, age or other considerations preclude them from preparing their own food. When I received an invitation to attend a cocktail party benefitting this charity, I readily signed up.

A quick glance at the culinary talent assembled for this event, give you an idea of how important this cause is to people. I'm sure Chef Daniel Boulud ringing you up helped persuade the attendees a bit as well. Nate Appleman, ex-SF super star and new NYC super star was there. He liked the sable fish dish he whipped up for the event so much, he is going to put it on the menu in his new restaurant Pulino. Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook fiom Animal in LA were there serving a very tasty chicken liver pate dish. George Mendes from Aldea served a tasty shrimp dish based on a classic Portugese recipe. Not to be outdone, Cafe Boulud's own Chef Gavin Kaysen served an array of hor dourves, each one better than the previous.

Of course, it wouldn't be a cocktail party without cocktails. The cocktails were ably handled by Bar Pleiades mixologist Cameron Bogue. I never had a cocktail with butternut squash puree in it before, nor would I thought that such a concoction would be palatable in the least. His elixir proved me completely wrong.

Yes, the evening was a complete blast. Yes, it was fun seeing Gael Greene and Barbara Fairchild. And yes, it did put a spotlight on the needs that exist in our own communities. So, when you open you wallet to help out Haiti, which we all should do. Keep it open a minute more to help out your less fortunate neighbors. Your next meal will taste that much better for it.

Pommes Darphin

2010-01-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

For 22 weeks, I got up early on Saturdays to drag myself and about 15 pounds of kitchen tools into the city to attend the French Culinary Institute. I made well over 100 different classic French dishes from souflees to pot au feu. The one dish I get asked to make time and again, pommes darphin.

I must admit, it has become one of my favorite potato dishes. Its crunchy on the outside while creamy on the inside nature makes it irresistible. Adding to its beauty is the fact you can make it ahead of time and reheat it later without loosing the crisp exterior. It is light on ingredients but pretty heavy on technique. It might take a few tries to get it correct, but at least you can eat the mistakes.

For this dish you will need the following:

Three medium russet potatoes
Vegetable oil, preferably canola or grapeseed oil to withstand the high heat
One table spoon of butter, cut into four equal pats
An 8" skillet
Slotted turner or other fairly long utensil for flipping
Mandolin or great knife skills

Peel potatoes and julianne them using a mandolin or by hand. You need a fairly small julianne. Do not rinse the potatoes!
Place the potatoes in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze out the water. This step is crucial! You want to remove moisture but keep the starch so the potatoes will stick together in a cake. Place potatoes in bowl and season.
Preheat skillet over high heat. Put enough oil into the pan to totally coat the bottom. You are not looking to deep fry, but a pool of oil about 1mm deep or so is ideal
Heat the oil until wisps of smoke appear. You want the pan screeching hot to avoid sticking.
Place the potatoes in the pan and form into a round cake. Press down firmly to get the potatoes to adhere.
When the bottom is golden brown, flip the cake. Here is where the small skillet and long turner come into play.
Turn down the flame to medium and place one pat of butter at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock. Cook until the bottom is brown and the center is cooked through.
If not serving immediately, place on a cooling rack. Reheat in an oven to serve.

This may take a few trial runs to get it right. If the potatoes did not stick together, they were still too wet or were cut to large. You really need to get most of the moisture out of the spuds.

When you do get this right, it is well worth the effort.

A Doh! While Rolling Dough

2010-01-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

A snap, a gasp, a moment of disbelief. Then the full gravity of the situation floods over you. I broke the rolling pin that has been in my family for more than 46 years. I don't know exactly how old it is, it was always there for us. Ready to make a pie dough for a festive occasion, or one to cheer up a sad situation. But always there at the ready. Tonight, rolling out some cookie dough, it gave its all.

In the kitchen, we rely on many inanimate objects to create our dishes. Some become trusted partners, nearly extensions of our own limbs. Others are only begrudgingly dragged out when needed, our thoughts turned to how to beat it into submission. Some become nearly totem like, passed down as a sacred object from generation to generation to continue a beloved family recipe.

My rolling pin's time had come. The wood inside the handle was dry rotted so if it did not go gently into that good night tonight, it would have gone soon. I will miss that ancient rolling pin and the connections and memories it held for me. I only hope these damn cookies taste good!

Christmas Wrap(Up)

2009-12-30T20:29:00.000-05:00

Twas four days before Christmas and all the Beard House could hear
Was the laughter and giggles
Of Table 1's good cheer

About a Top Chef's food we chatted and tasted
Exposing each course's virtues and vices
Little wine was left wasted

When the time finally came to go back out in the cold
A renunion was in the plans
Ere the New Year gets old

I have been to countless James Beard Foundation events, but I have never seen a table bond like this over the course of an evening. Top Chef winner, Stephanie Izzard's food was certainly quite good, but it had stiff competition from the conversation and companionship at the table. I think I will just call it a draw.

A big storm the weekend before Christmas blanketed the area in a beautiful coating of snow. Come Christmas day it was the best of both worlds. The streets were clear, but the snow was still around adding that Norman Rockwell factor to the day.

I originally had a hard time convincing my mother to come over. But as Christmas day neared, she was getting excited about the prospect of getting out for a day. She had a blast playing with her old cat and watching the yule log on TV while I plied her with food. I left her in her room blissfully full and stocked her fridge with leftovers.

The standing rib roast came about great, done to a nice medium rare. My rustic desert was maybe a tad too rustic, but these things do happen. The Duckhorn cab we had with dinner was just perfect. If not for the price tag, I would drink it every day. It tasted especially fine after dropping mom off, kicking off my shoes and glowing in the dying light of a Christmas day.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T08:26:00.001-05:00

Sam T. Cat says "Have a Merry Christmas or they won't take this stupid hat off me."

May your holiday be filled with laughter, love and leftovers!

Comfort and Joy

2009-12-21T16:21:00.001-05:00

In our place, you are never more than ten feet away from a cookbook. It helps that our place is only 1200 square feet, but you get my drift. Grant Achatz, Thomas Keller, Julia Child, Lidia Bastianich are all within arms reach to dispense their culinary secrets. Yet, whose cookbook do I grab for first when cooking something new, a widowed homemaker from Saint Louis. To top that, she self published her first edition. Well, now there is a ninth edition and some 18 million copies of it have graced kitchens around the globe. I am referring to Irma Rombauer and "The Joy of Cooking".

Irma published the first edition in 1931 as a way to support her family. I'm sure she had no inkling that the book would still be relevant over 75 years later. Its friendly tone and encyclopedic coverage of the culinary world, "Braised bear anyone?", have made it indispensable to the kitchen novice and master alike.

So when E requested mac and cheese for dinner, I knew exactly where to turn. "The Joy" had to have a recipe. It most certainly did. It was the classic recipe with a bit of a twist. Make a bechamel sauce, make some pasta, melt some cheese in the bechamel, etc. The twist came in assembling the dish for baking. Put half the pasta and cheese sauce mixture in your baking dish. Put some shredded cheese over that layer. The extra cheese is then topped with the other half of the cheesy pasta goodness. Cover with browned bread crumbs and bake. Well, that extra step added different texture and more concentrated cheese flavor to the dish that I really liked.

I purposely only included enough of the recipe to tease you all into breaking open your own copy of "The Joy of Cooking" or to seek it out. I'm sure you know someone who has a copy. The book, or maybe it should be referred to as "The Book" has added a great deal of comfort and joy to my life. My first paperback edition literally fell apart from years of use, each stained page telling a tale. Certainly try out the mac and cheese recipe, it will bring you much comfort and will be a joy to make and eat.

The Short Ribs Were Nestled All Snug in Their Sauce

2009-12-13T17:37:00.002-05:00

Busy, busy weekend here in Sautoir Land. Was in the Great White North yesterday. Well, just Connecticut, but it was north of here. The cold rain and wind today did not make heading outside to visit mom and run errands a pleasant diversion. I'm typing this while I'm getting ready to go a Holiday Party here in the building. I think it would be tacky to where slippers, but I am tempted. While all this is going on, I have my favorite dish bubbling away in the oven, zinfandel braised short ribs.

There is just something about this dish that I, and everyone I served it to, just love. It may be the fruity but spicy flavor of the zinfandel, the meatiness of the short ribs, or just the plain heaping load of comfort you get from a braised dish. Best of all, it usually tastes better the next day, so it's a perfect make ahead dinner.

I like to use Rosenblum or Rancho Zabaco zins to make this dish. They are both really nice wines are great prices. I picked up a Rosenblum for under $10 today at my normal wine store, so you can probably get it cheaper at Costco or some other bulk retailer.

Anyone angling for a Christmas gift of a Le Creuset dutch oven, this is the perfect way to plant the idea. "If I had that La Creuest dutch oven, I could make this all the time and it would taste so much better." I can't guarantee success their, but I can insure that you will not get coal in your stocking if you prepare this.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons of canola oil

2 pounds bone in beef short ribs

2 medium onions

3 medium carrots

2 cloves of garlic

1 750ml bottle of Zinfandel

2 cups of beef, chicken or veal stock

Fresh or dried thyme

2 Fresh or dried bay leaves

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Pour bottle of wine into a sauce pan and reduce by half over high heat
Heat oil in dutch oven or other large, heavy pot with a lid
Season short ribs with salt and pepper.
Brown short ribs on all sides
Slice onions into 1/4 inch slices
Cut carrots into 1/2 inch slices
Peel and crush garlic cloves
Remove ribs to platter. Pour out all oil except for about 1 teaspoon
Sweat onions and carrots
When onions have softened add the garlic cloves, cook for about 1 minute
Add back ribs
Add reduced wine to dutch oven
Add stock to ribs are covered
Add thyme and bay leaves. Several sprigs of thyme if fresh, 1 teaspoon if dried.
Bring to boil
Cover dutch oven and place in oven
Cook until ribs are exceedingly tender, about 2 1/2 hours
Remove ribs
Strain and defat cooking liquid
Boil until sauce reduces and thickens a bit, about 10 minutes
Put ribs back in sauce
Eat, drink and be merry. Or let ribs sit over night, then eat, drink and be merry.

Bocuse D'or Blowout at Bar Boulud

2009-12-09T20:51:00.003-05:00

The thrill of victory... the agony of defeat. We all know those immortal words from ABC's Wide World of Sports. In the wide world of culinary competition, the US was more akin to the hapless ski jumper falling off the jump than any of the jubilent winners seen in the opening montage. Many big players in the US culinary world are trying to change that.

For those of you who do not know about the Bocuse D'or, it is very simple to explain: Culinary Olympics. Young chefs represent their countries in a high pressure cooking event, judged by a veritable pantheon of culinary gods. Throw in throngs of rabid, flag waving fans and you get the picture. Yes, throngs of rabid, flag waving fans, at a COOKING competition. I kid you not.

The US has not fared well at this event. The last time this event was held, the powers that be asked some of the top US chefs to get involved in preparing the US team for competition. They asked and got none other than Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller to throw their toques into the ring. You know this is serious when you can get these two to help out. The US did okay last year, but they are looking ahead to doing much better. So, they held a fund raising dinner last weekend at Bar Boulud in NYC. I decided to make the sacrifice and eat a terrific meal for the team.

Saturday was the worst weather day we had in a while. A constant rain mixed with snow fell the entire day. While nothing short of a full on blizzard would have stopped us from going, we got dressed up and headed out into the tempest. We arrived at Bar Boulud in less time than we thought and headed downstairs to the event. A glass of cold champagne and some warm company soon put the poor weather out of our minds.

It was a much smaller event than I imagined. Since about 200 people were at the Top Chef Bocuse D'or event, I was expecting about the same. There were only about 40 people at this event, but they were dedicated. Two couples came up from Philadelphia for the event. One couple was even taking the train back that night! It's about a 90 minute train trip, so those people can only be described as hardcore.

Some really tasty appetizers were making the rounds when the man himself, Chef Daniel Boulud showed up. He made his way through the crowd, greeting all. We soon were seated for dinner and Chef Boulud gave a talk on how he was recruited to help out the US team and gave a quick preview of the dinner menu. "When in doubt, serve foie gras" is how he described the inspiration for the first course. The dinner was mainly Lyonaise holiday dishes. The standout was the poached chicken with truffles under its skin. Yes, it did taste as good as it sounded.

The conversation at the table was almost as good as the food. With topics ranging from Lady Gaga to law school. The evening flew by. Flew by so fast that we missed our ride home and had to have another car sent to pick us up! At least by this time, the rain and snow had stopped and NYC was resplendent in its Yuletide trimmings.

Giving Thanks to the Day Before Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T20:08:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving Day, kitchens across America join in the collective cacophony of pots and pans banging together in an attempt to get the feast to the table. My kitchen is no different, joyful in the din of making dinner. The day before Thanksgiving is a different matter entirely. Then it is only me, the cat, and perhaps a glass of wine, as the building blocks of the blowout are quietly prepared.

The day before Thanksgiving used to mean hand to hand combat with traffic as I made my way to my parents. Even when I started making the annual dinner, it was a battle to get out of NYC to get home. One dish may be thrown together, but rattled nerves and razor sharp knives are not good bedfellows. Then one year, due to an unexpected plethora of vacation days, I took the day off. The scales fell from my eyes as I saw how easy, and relaxing, it was to crank out dish after dish. When the big day dawned, I was so much more relaxed and in control having made about 60% of the meal already.

Yesterday was no different. I was sipping my coffee as I prepped onions and carrots for the turkey stock. Popping them in the oven, along with a pair a turkey wings, gave me the added bonus of having the house smell like Thanksgiving two days in a row. Soon the cranberry sauce was out of the way, the dessert was cooling on a rack, the first course was in the oven and I was prepping veggies for the stuffing. I had spent the whole day in the kitchen, rocking out to a countdown of the 1043 best classic rock tunes and having an all around good time. Led Zepplin provides the best soundtrack to dice an onion by, just in case you were wondering.

Rich Turkey Stock for Gravy

One large onion

Two medium carrots

Two turkey wings

Vegetable oil

Thyme or other fresh herbs

Pepper corns

Peel and roughly chop onion
Peel and roughly chop carrots
Place in roasting pan with turkey legs and drizzle oil over everything. Just a small amount of oil to facilitate browning.
Place pan into a preheated 450 degree oven for one hour or until wings are brown
Place wings and vegetables in a stock pot. Add water to cover. You are looking to have at least a quart of stock at the end of cooking, so be sure to add more than a quart of water.
Pour roasting juices from pan into another vessel so that the fat can be removed. Add defatted liquids to stock pot.
Deglaze roasting pan with water. Add the liquid to the stock pot.
Bring to a simmer and cook for one hour, skimming the scum off the top of the stock.
After one hour, add the thyme, pepper corns and other fresh herbs to the pot. Cook an additional 2-3 hours until the stock is dark and rich tasting.
Strain into a large vessel using a colander.
Re-strain using a small mesh sieve if desired.
Restrain yourself from drinking it all, you need it for gravy remember.

Top Chef Live! Well, Sort Of

2009-11-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

The cooking competition show "Top Chef" has cemented its place as the official foodie water cooler topic. Whether the discussion is on the food or cooking, or one of the many dramas that occur when you place so many people, in such close quarters under so much pressure. When I received an e-mail touting watching an episode of Top Chef with Tom Colicchio, Padma, Daniel Boulud, Alain Sailhac, Gavin Kaysen, plus Top Chef contestant Kevin I was so there. Especially since it was a benefit for the American team competing in the Big Show culinary competition The Bocuse D'or.

The Bocuse D'or is best described as the food world's Olympics. Teams from around the world compete under the intense scrutiny of the world's best chefs while screaming fans wave the flags of their favorite country. Gavin Kaysen, executive chef at Cafe Boulud, was a competitor in the Bocuse D'or and gave some insight into being through the culinary gauntlet.

I arrived a little early at the Astor Center where the event was being held. I should just move into this place since I seem to be there like everyday. There was a huge throng of people milling about outside waiting for the doors to open. Then, as close to a red carpet moment as I will ever likely to experience, Chef Tom Colicchio arrived and bounded up the stairs. Soon Daniel Boulud and Alain Sailhac joined him inside. The doors were soon opened to the rest of us and the party began.

Given the nature of the event, the chefs preparing the food gave it their all. All of the passed appetizers were on the north side of wonderful. Some wonderful cocktails, wine and champagne rounded out the comestibles.

The event was pretty crowded so you soon made fast friends with the people next to you. The people were in a very festive mood, probably brought on by the wonderful cocktails, wine and champagne mentioned above. I was soon running into friends left and right, only to loose them again in a sea a food obsessed humanity.

A few minutes before the airing of "Top Chef" was to start, Tom Colicchio, Padma, and Kevin took the stage to say a few words. Then the show began. With all the people, chatter and other noise it was kind of hard to actually watch the show. But was it better than sitting on my easy chair, eating chips and watching it at home? Oh yeah!

The Lost Legacy

2009-11-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

A family recipe is sometimes passed done with as much thought and care as an English estate. "Not just anyone can be the custodian of my recipe" has been proclaimed by countless grandmothers over the years. Other recipes beg to be passed on, but find no willing takers. Some, miss their chance to continue in the family lore and are lost. My father's potato pancake recipe is one of those.

No one made potato pancakes like my father, at least no one that I have met. They were not the latke type made out of shredded potatoes. His were made from a batter and had a lightness about them that only led to you eating more of them. Everyone loved them. They became a symbol of family and celebration. Nothing would make me happier to whip up a batch when far flung branches of the clan stopped by. Only one problem, my father didn't teach me how to make them.

I would pop into the kitchen when he was making batch, only to be shooed away. Then he got sick and thoughts were directed elsewhere.

Gray and rainy days find me in the kitchen, trying to reverse engineer those pillowy cakes of memories. Trying to get the taste, texture and timelessness just right. But I know, that they will never be my father's pancakes. I can already hear the family proclaiming "These are great, but their just not Uncle Ray's". You just can't whip up a batch of legacy.

Please Don't Eat the Hero Triscuit

2009-11-10T16:34:00.001-05:00

Each model faced a cruel and heartless scrutiny. The deserving ones were coddled and handled like royalty. The rest were dismissed with a sniff of derision and a wave of the hand. They left in silence, no howls of protest. The compliance of the models could only be accounted for with one reason, they were snack crackers. But even in the world of snack foods, looks can get you pretty far.

Last weekend I spent in a kind of Bizarro World version of my usual culinary life. Taste was not even in the backseat, but left at home to fend for itself. The weekend was all about how the food looked. More specifically, how the food looked in a photograph. I was lucky enough to snag a spot in the Food Styling and Photography Workshop at the Institute of Culinary Education. Here Jim Peterson, Jamie Tiampo, Laurie Knoop and Matt Noel would try to impart their collective knowledge of this subject.

Taking a good looking photograph of food can be a challenge. I'm sure all you bloggers out there know exactly what I mean. Making the food good looking enough to photograph was another aspect of the class that I frankly had almost zero experience in. My models were of the natural, meal next door type. They also didn't last long in the biz as they(rather we) found it totally consuming. Getting your meal ready for its close up was the milieu of Laurie Knoop.

Laurie graduated from culinary school, but did not want to work in a restaurant. Through a friend, she pursued food styling and now owns her own food photography studio. Laurie told us all the secrets of getting food to look good in a photo. Sometimes, the best way is to not use the food at all. Crisco mixed with various sugars and strawberry jam was a dead ringer for strawberry ice cream. Instant mashed potatoes made many appearances in the bag of tricks. As a substitute for the icing you don't see in a cake and to fill up a deflated looking roast chicken to only mention a few. Many of the tricks she taught us are no longer used that much, at least in the higher end publications. But at least we have them in our back pockets if we ever need them. She also taught us myriad ways to keep real food good looking for the shoots.

Jim Peterson, Jamie Tiampo and Matt Noel showed us many ways to get a photograph of food to look great. The only way to have a great photograph is to have great light. They showed us many ways to manipulate natural light to have the effect you want to achieve. The best part of this, most of these techniques are cheap and some even free. Foil is a great reflector. If you crumple it up a bit, it throws off a nice, mottled light. Mirrors are great as well. A small mirror can be used to spot light an area that you want to draw attention to in a photo. Foam boards of different colors are also great reflectors. The different colors can evoke some interesting atmospheres in your shots.

We were finally let loose to try our hands at food styling. Our first task was to create a still life. My teams eyes were drawn to this beautiful acorn squash. We decided to do a still life of autumn's bounty and starting collecting our "stars". We picked up some props to best showcase our work and started styling the still life. When we were going astray, one of the instructors would gently guide us back to a more aesthetic form. Our final still life was a far cry from the starting one and miles better.

We were challenged with more involved projects as the weekend progressed. Shopping in the Union Square Greenmarket for ingredients to style was disorienting. Again, back in the Bizzaro World of looking for good looking food not good tasting food. We did find some dramatic ingredients and made a pretty good photo if I may say so myself. Jim and Jamie did most of the photography in the class. It was interesting to see the different styles between the two. We were able to shoot pictures of our food as well, which provided some interesting comparisons once I got home.

My Photo

Jamie Tiampo's Photo

For our final project, we had a choice of protein and were allowed to run wild with the rest. Judging by the final photos, it seems everyone learned quite a bit in this class. The most important lesson learned was to never eat anything on a photo shoot. Once an art director ate the hero cookie at a $70,000 shoot. That's really putting your money where your mouth is.

The Risotto Road to Enlightenment

2009-11-04T10:18:00.001-05:00

Last night, a funny thing crossed my mind while I was making a risotto, nothing. I was so enrapt by the process, that I must have went a good 10-15 minutes without the usual mental chatter. It was just add stock, stir, add stock, stir. I was completely living in the moment like a Zen master, until E entered the kitchen and interupted my reverie.

This got me thinking about the meditive properties of cooking. So many of the usual tasks of cooking are repetitive and require your full attention. When you really look at it how different is prepping vegtables from the Zen meditation practice of zazen. Instead of foucing you mind by sitting still and counting breaths, you focusing your mind on slicing and dicing. When you are dicing an onion, you world collapses to job at hand, the only sound you hear is the snick of the knife slicing through the onion and hitting the board. It's nearly magical that this simple task can hold the chaos of the world beyond the kitchen is at bay, at least for a while.

While "What is the sound of one hand whisking" will probably not be made an official Zen koan anytime soon, the forced mindfulness of cooking may bring us closer to inner peace. It certainly helps me. And, you get to eat your path to elightenment.

Reflections of Maremma Workshop at the James Beard House

2009-10-26T18:07:00.005-04:00

It was a glorius fall day. The rake the leaves in a pile and jump in kind of day. The kind of day when a glass of apple cider tastes just that much better. So, wracked was with mixed feelings, I headed to my cooking event. The James Beard House was hosting a cooking workshop with the Apicius School of Hospitality. Maybe they would have apple cider there.

Each year, the Apicius School of Hospitality makes a pilgramage from their home in Florence, Italy to the James Beard House. The chefs maximize the the use of their frequent flyer miles by both cooking a dinner and running a workshop.The workshop usually features some of the recipes from the dinner. During this trip, the cuisine of Tuscany's wild Maremma region was the star.

The kitchen of the Beard House was abuzz with activity as we made our way in for the class. There were so many chefs crammed into the kitchen, it looked like the 6 train going to a Yankees game. We found a spot along the counter, eager for the lesson to begin. A introduction to the school and the chefs served as the preamble to a discussion of the dishes to be prepared. Groups were formed, sleeves rolled up and the cooking began.

Well, at least a little participation in the cooking began. Most of the cooking classes at the James Beard House are demos classes do to the relatively small size of the kitchen. It's called the James Beard House because well, it really was James Beard's house. So picture a professional kitchen shoehorned into your house and you pretty much get the picture. The Apicius people do always have a hands on portion to their workshops, but we never get to prepare the dish from start to finish.

The first dish was Terrina di Melanzane e Pomodoro, a tomato and eggplant terrine. This dish was a standout taste wise and presentation wise. The goal was to make it look like a piece of tuna on the plate, which it did. This was like a Halloween costume for food. The eggplant looked a lot like fish skin and the tomato was a near dead ringer for raw tuna. A taste catapulted it beyond something nice to look at to a bonifed taste sensation. It just burst with an explosion of tomato flavor set off with a spicy spark of eggplant.

Following that, we got our hands dirty making Tortelli Maremmani di Ricotta di Pecora ed Erbette di Campo sul Sugo di Carne e Salsiccia, sheep milk ricotta with a beef and sausage ragu. We channeled our inner Mario Batali's making pasta dough with the well method. The wall of the flour well was gently broken down, incorporating into the egg mixture forming a rough dough. This proto pasta dough needed to be kneaded until it was no longer sticky to the touch. We allowed the dough to rest while one of the chefs demoed how to make the filling.

Fresh from its nap, the dough was sent through a pasta maker, making a thin sheet. This poor, unsuspecting dough was the guinea pig for our inexper tortelli making. Let's just say that whatever gene Italian grandmothers have for pasta making, was completely absent from our group. It did give us a new found respect for the pasta makers out there. That reverance caused everyone to lick their plates clean when this course was served.

As a special treat, the chefs brought along some wild boar strip loin. This was just browned on all sides in a pan and finished in an oven. I would like to know what kind of life this wild boar had. It was melt in the mouth tender. I guess the forest this boar was from featured massages at the very least.

The event was capped off with a Crostata di Ricotta served with a pistachio creme. A lovely desert wine, not available in the US, was served with this course. The chefs and sommeliers smuggled it in, hidden in their luggage. Contraband wine always tastes sweeter, so good thing this was a desert wine.

It ended up being a glorius fall day in a different kind of way. It was a blast trying to make tortelli and relsihing in a really great meal. I guess it was better than jumping into a pile of leaves after all.

Blindsided

2009-10-22T14:41:00.001-04:00

The wine snob raises the glass of wine, swirls it deftly, as his nose probes for all its secret aromas. He takes a sip, swishes it around his mouth and spits it out into the waiting bucket. He proceeds to describe the wine in prose even more purple than the permanent wine stains on his teeth. Then, as a finale, he declares the exact grape, area, producer and vintage of the wine. The crowd is stunned with awe in witnessing such an amazing feat.

The above is the cliched version of blind tasting. To actually get such an amazing amount of detail correct is more the exception than the rule, but if you pay attention to what's in your glass, it's amazing on how close you can get to the above scene. Hopefully, sans stained teeth.

Last night, Fred Dexheimer, a Master Sommelier, gave a class in blind tasting at the Astor Center. To get the Master Sommelier certification, one must pass a grueling test consisting of general wine knowledge, wine service and a blind tasting of six wines.  Only about 100 people in the US have this designation and most people who have it took the exams several time to pass it. So, I was ready to absorb whatever knowledge he had to impart.

Fred started off with a brief description of how wine is made.  He had a great slide using Pacman to demonstrate how yeast eats sugar to make alcohol.  Right then, I knew this was going to be a great class.

As he moved through the steps of tasting a wine, he was framing the lessons in the context of discerning more about the mystery in your glass.  How the color of the wine changes with age so you can at least place the vintage of the wine into newer or older.  He talked about how climate affected the alcohol level and viscosity of wine. You could then use this information to place the wine into a warm growing region or a cool growing region. Is the nose of the wine more fruity or more earthy?  This gives you important clues into whether it is a wine from the Old World or a New World upstart.

We finally got to put our new wine tasting acumen to the test by blind tasting seven wines. I know, I know, it was a tough assignment, but you have to do what you have to do.  The wines were all from standard grapes and regions so they be great wines to cut our blind tasting teeth(taste buds?) on. We worked our way through the wines starting with three white wines.  Fred led us through the FEW TAL tasting steps. That is Fruit, Earth, Wood, Tannin, Acid, and Length. The class no problem of identifying the first wine as a New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

We soon started sipping and zipping our way through the wines, throwing around adjectives like barnyard and pencil lead like the most jaded wine critic.  We did great in identifying the wines. Only the last one had the class a little confused, about half thought it was a Zinfandel, the other half a Syrah. I was in the Zin camp myself and was a little disappointed to see it was indeed the Syrah.

This was a really fun and informative class. Fred Dexheimer proved to be a great instructor, making the material really fun to learn. Now please excuse me, I have blind wine tasting to practice.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, LIVE!

2009-10-16T06:25:00.001-04:00

Wednesday was whirlwind of activity. I had to attend a meet and greet with the CEO, had to present the findings of the project that was driving me to distraction for the past couple of weeks, speed off to a James Beard Foundation event, then rush downtown to a class. I did not plan a day like this, but when the Lords of Chaos have you in their sights, these things happen.

The Astor Center has launched a new series of events entitled "Great Cooks and Their Books". It combines getting to know some of the icons of cooking better by cooking recipes from their seminal cookbooks. The series started off with what may be the most seminal of them all, Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Curious, I signed up for the event. Then my calander got stuffed like a sausage.

The Lords of Chaos took pity on me after I presented my findings and everything just fell into place. At 6:00PM I was rolling up my sleaves and donning an apron, ready to get down with huge quantities of butter. Entering the kitchen, I knew we were in for an evening of fun. Old episodes of "The French Chef" were playing on flat panel TVs to set the mood. The instructor, Carl Raymond, was very friendly and engaging. He got the dough kneading by asking each of us about our cooking experience and our relationship with Julia. There were some experienced cooks, some novices, some who have had a long relationship with Julia, others have never heard of her until the movie "Julia and Julie", and one who spoke very little English. We would not have enough time to cook all of the classes recipes, so we broke into teams to tackle a few recipes each. I found myself on Team Salad Nicoise with two very fun Japanese women. Other teams were tackling boeuf bourguignon and tarte aux pommes.

Before breaking into our individual teams to tackle Julia's dishes, Chef Carl demoed several techniques. Chef Carl shares my cooking philosophy, learn techniques not recipes. Once you understand a technique and how food reacts to it, you can pretty much just scoop up some ingredients at the market and make dinner. Carl made a mayo, demoed how to saute, and made a Hollandaise sauce. He did this ala Julia, no bain marie(double boiler) and whole butter. I might have heard the faint whirring sound of Escoffier spinning in his grave, but the Hollandaise sauce came out great.  We then broke down into our groups and had at it.

Salad Nicoise is a classic French composed salad. By composed, it is not all mixed together, but rather the ingredients are arranged artfully on a plate. It consists of cooked potatoes, cooked green beans, tuna, olives, tomatoes, and greens. We had lots of prep to do and we got at it.  Despite my Japanese team mates unfamiliarlarity with French cooking and Julia Child, they were quite adept and we soon became a Salad Nicoise machine.  We soon had all the components of the salad ready and the vinaigrette prepared.

I was pulled into Hollandaise making and left my two teammates to plate the salad.  No one informed them about the nature of composed salads, so they preceded to mix everything together. I looked up from my whisking to see two giant piles of Salad Nicoise.  The plating looked good though as they were artfully placing ingredients on top of the dish.

I was so caught up in my own team's cooking that I did not catch much of the rest of class in action. I can tell you that the end results were all delicious. Every team earned kudos for their work as the serving platters quickly emptied.  As I exited the kitchen into the surprisingly chilly evening, I could have sworn I heard a ghostly "Bon Appetit" carried on the autumn wind.

Hollandaise Sauce, Hybrid Julia Child/Carl Raymond Recipe

3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon of water
1 tablesppon of lemon juice
1 1/2- 2 sticks of room temperature butter, cut into pieces

Beat egg yolks in sauce pan
Add water, lemon juice, and salt and beat until the egg yolks thicken slightly
Place saucepan over very low heat and beat eggs until they reach a thick, creamy consistency. Be sure not to scramble the egg yolks or you will have to start over!
Remove pan from heat and start beating in the butter, one piece at a time.
Continue to add the butter until the mixture gets to a consistency of a thick cream. Use of the minimum amount of butter to reach this stage is recommended to prevent the sauce from breaking.
Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Keep sauce warm(not hot!), serve as soon as possible,

NY Wine and Food Festival

2009-10-12T12:31:00.001-04:00

For the second year in a roll, throngs of foodies flooded the streets of NYC making their way to a cooking demo, a wine tasting, the ever popular Burger Bash, or the ultimate thrill of meeting their favorite Food Network star. Even in a totally food obssessed town as NYC, a certain buzz was in the air, competing with the buzz from the bourbon tasting, but I digress.

I made it to three events this year, a Martha Stewart cooking demo, a wine tasting and a whiskey tasting. Three very different, but interesting events.

Friday evening I made it to the New School's Tisch Auditorium for the Martha Stewart cooking demo. I arrived about 20 minutes before the start and already the line was half a block long. The line moved swiftly and I was able to snag a front row seat. There, up on stage honing her knives, was the Doyenne of Domesticity herself, Martha Stewart. It was interesting to see how a large part of the audience was completly besides themselves in the presence of their hero. A group of foodies from the Phillapines asked her when she was going to pay them a visit back home. That is dedication.

Martha was going to demo a dinner from her soon to be released cook book, "Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home". It is a collection of seasonal dinners that will take about an hour on average to prepare. When I say Martha demoed, I mean she mostly talked while one of her food editors mostly demoed. The meal itself was very tasty looking: duck breast with fig sauce, a potato dish based on pommes daphin, braised red cabbage and hazelnut brittle sundae. After the demo there was a lively Q & A session that had a few very interesting moments. A gentleman asked Martha what types of pots and pans he needed. Martha replied, "Be sure they have a triple ply bottom. It's very easy, go to Macy's, they come in a big, white box that says Martha Stewart on it." The audience howled.

I discovered two keys to Martha's popularity during this demo. The first key is that she has a very good rapport with her audience. She seem genuinely engaged when talking to her fans. Her second and probably her biggest key is she talks very authoritatively. She makes statements with such confidence that you just believe her. Well, most of the time. I did not believe her when she said she makes her own puff pastry from scratch.

The next day was a completley differnet type of event. I made my way downtown to the Astor Center to a tasting of Quintessa wines. The tasting was structured to demonstrate how the area a grape was grown in affects the taste of the wine made from it. This is what wine afficinados call terroir. The tasting was led by Augustin Francisco Huneeus from Quintessa wines. He told the story of how his family obtained the land and how it was planted. The rolling hills on the property, along with differnet soil types create many different growing environments for their grape vines. We went on to taste three differnet barrel sample wines made from the same cabernet sauvingnon clone. The grapes were grown in different parts of the estate. The grapes did indeed very different wines. Some of these grapes were grown only a few hundred feet apart, yet the wines they produced were miles apart in terms of taste. Well, miles apart from a wine geek's point of view at least. We finally tasted the finished Quintessa wines from three different vintages, 2003, 2005 and 2006. All three wines were wonderful, but the 2006 needs a few more years to really reach its peak.

A free event was running all weekend at the Astor Center known as "Le French Lounge". Sponsored by the French government, this was a nice little event showcasing French food and drink. Wines from the Alsace and Chateneuf de Pape were featured along with Perrier and French beer. Of course, there was a full selection of French cheese and bread. Chefs from Le Cordon Bleu were doing various demos. Doing demos using foie gras. Free event, free foie gras, free wine. Winner for my favorite event.

Sunday afternoon, I met up with my friend GT for a whiskey tasting. The event was held at the trendy steak house STK in the trendy Meat Packing District. Even the damn pigeons in this area are trendy. As soon as we entered, a drink was shoved into our paws. "This is going to be some event.", I thought sipping my "Not Your Father's Manhattan". We found a table and sat down. Array in front of us were six glasses of whiskey. Waiters flitted through the room carrying food as we waited for the drinking to begin in earnest. A nice spicy shrimp was offered along with a killer maple glazed bacon. I nearly had to physically restrain GT from taking a whole tray of the bacony bits of heaven. The tasting began with a tasting of Maker's Mark bourbon. The brand ambassador gave us the story of how Maker's Mark came to be and what to look for when we taste it. Again, another brand ambassador(See Dewars DO post). How do I get that gig? We switched to the Jim Beam uinverse of booze and yet another brand ambassador. Our first whiskey here was the bourbon Basil Hayden. This was markedly different than the Maker's Mark, more spicy and less sweet. Our next bourbon was Knob Creek. This pretty much tasted as you expect bourbon to taste. You get the vanilla and caramel from the barrel aging, along with some citrus and spiciness. This has been one of my favorite bourbons for quite some time. We took a quick detour to the land of rye, with Jim Bean's R(i). This was a very flavorful and spicy whiskey that will probably not be to everyone's taste.

As we were progessing through the tasting, the decibel level in the room was also progessing. Upward progression. We were also being treated to another progression, the proof of the whiskies. While Basil Hayden was a 80 proof beverage, Knob Creek was 105. We made our way to Baker's 125 proof. Luckily there were no open flames when we hit Booker's at over 130 proof. At least all those glasses will be sterile! Even at those high proofs, these whiskies had plenty of taste and character.

The emptying fo the last glass brought the event to an end. GT and I made our out into a cool fall evening. Not that we noticed the cold, but just saying.

Magic, Martinis and Mario: Having a Cocktail for the Kids

2009-10-09T11:12:00.001-04:00

The hoarde of zombies was getting closer and their numbers were increasing at an alarming rate. Where can we find an escape from our impending doom? Look, there's Mario Batali in the door of Del Posto with a fist full of salamis beconning us to come to safety. We run inside and he locks the door.

I wake with a start and immediately begin to laugh. Work has been a little stressful as of late and my subconscious is telling me that I picked out the right person for some relief.

I received an e-mail about a month ago detailing an evening of Magic, Martinis and Mario as a benefit for the Mario Batali Foundation. It was a bit exspensive, but it was for charity, so out came the Amex and I was in. The evening arrived just in the nick of time. A very nice cocktail, containing more ingredients than I can recall, was in my hand. It went far in assuaging the days ills, as did the parade of appetizers that was streaming from the kitchen. All of the little bites were quite tasty, but the polpette and the prosciutto wrapped scallops were standouts.

Since this was a benefit event and not just some foodie round up, it did have a bit of a different vibe than what I am used to. Outside of the silent auction articles, the large number of very tall, very thin women lent a "I'm not in Kansas anymore" athmosphere to the happening.

Soon Mario appeared, working the crowd with ease and enthusiasm. I only had a chance to exchange a few words with him before he flitted off to the next group of attendees. I had time for another cocktail before the evenings main event got started.

Cocktail meister extrodinarie, Tony Abou-Ganim, took the stage demonstrating how to make the drink that would accompany the first course, "The Happy Mario". Mario then took the stage and demoed how to prepare the first course, shrimp with soft polenta. His years of TV experience was evident with the ease and confidence he showed while cooking, teaching and bantering with the audience.

In between cooking demos, the evenings mc, magician Bill Harris, entertained the audience. He did promote a festive athmosphere while trying to loosen the attendees purse strings. Mario retook the stage to demo the second course, merguez sausage with orecchitte. This was my favorite dish of the evening, the spicness of the sausage was the perfect foil for the sweetness of the pureed carrots.

After a few more tricks and a lot more schtick, Mario was up again making pork chops with cardoons. This was a very good demo and a very good dish. This was the "foodiest" demo as Mario got into a discussion of heritage pork breeds and having to cook the cardoons au blanc(with flour in the water).

When these plates were cleard away, the real money making began, the live auction. I was tempted to make a bid on the 5 magnums of wine when the opening bid was $500. I would not have made the final winning bid, $6000, however! The item that generated the most buzz was a Tiger Woods golf event called Tiger Jam. Two people traded bids until it finall went for well over $20,000!

I wearily made my way back to Hoboken, laden with a very heavy gift bag. I was not believing any of the clocks I passed showing midnight. Alas, they were correct and I did not get to bed till nearly 1:00AM. The alarm went off in what seemed like minutes, but I was feeling pretty good as I got up to face another day of chaos.

Nuts for Butternut Squash

2009-10-06T10:09:00.000-04:00

Fall has settled in here in Hoboken. A cool breeze is rustling the leaves that are slowly donning their autumn finery. You need something a warm to stay off the chill and soup fits the bill perfectly.

Last weekend E flew back to California to watch her beloved Cal Bears take on the USC Trojans. Knowing she will probably need something to lift her spirits after the game(She did, the game was not pretty) I made a batch of her favorite soup, butternut squash. She likes the soup more on the sweet than savory side, so I added some apples to take accomplish that. Roasting the squash and some onion in the oven first also tends to bring out a little sweetness. Here's the play by play.

2 butternut squash
1 large onion, preferably a sweet variety
1-2 tablespoons of neutral flavored oil such as canola
2 apples, preferably macintosh or golden delicious
8 cups of chicken stock or vegetable stock
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, preferably freshly ground
Salt and pepper to taste
creme fraiche for garnish (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
Cut off 1/4 inch from top and bottom of butternut squash. Peel with vegetable peeler until the orange flesh is visible. Cut squash in half. Requires sharp knife, some force, and much care! Remove seeds and fibrous material. Cut into roughly equal sized pieces. Place in large bowl.
Rough chop onion, place in bowl with squash.
Add oil and stir to coat ingredients. This will aid in the browning of the vegetables.
Place in single layer on sheet pan and roast for approximately 45 minutes or until slightly browned.
Remove from oven
Add stock to large pan
Core, peel and chop apples. Add to stock.
Add butternut squash and onions to stock.
Add nutmeg and season with salt and pepper.
Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Let soup cook for 20 minutes.
Puree soup with an immersion blender or in batches in regular blender. Do not overfill blender as hot soup will expand!
Check for seasoning
Ladle into bowl and garnish with a dab of creme fraiche if desired.
Spoon into mouth until desired level of comfort is reached.

Dewars Do

2009-10-03T16:34:00.000-04:00

It's pretty funny that I'm writing about a Scotch function with the melancholy sound of bagpipes drifting through the air. Why someone is playing the bagpipes on a Saturday afternoon in Hoboken is anyone's guess, but that's why I love this town.

My friend GT is on every e-mail list there is. He gets invited to a plethora of events every week. Granted, most of these events are basically live action infomercials, but they generally feature free food and booze. There is never anything wrong with free food and booze. Last Wednesday, Dewars was hosting an event at the new chi-chi W Hotel right here in Hoboken. I got to tag along with GT to check it out.

The new W is a great looking hotel. I guess it has to be since it costs north of $200 a night to stay there. We queued up on the second floor waiting for the event to start. They had to check everyone's id to make sure they were of legal age. A quick look at me and you know that I passed that threshold a long time ago, but I guess they have to follow the rules. Once we were allowed in, we were given the choice of three drinks: Dewars on the rocks, Dewars with ginger ale or a Dewars mojito. We both opted for the Dewars with ginger ale and availed ourselves to the food. I must say, for a free event the food was pretty good. The had tuna tartare, crab cakes, risotto balls and meatball sliders. Soon it was time for the cheese, I mean the presentation to start.

A Dewars brand ambassador started giving us the history of Dewars along with an overview of Scotch in general. My only question is "How do I get this gig? Travel the world and drink? He gets paid to do this? Wow!". His presentation was actually quite interesting. He then moved into the interactive portion of the evening. In front of us were an array of test tubes. Some of these contained the components of the aroma of Scotch: vanilla, orange peel, floral elements, honey and peat. Along with these were test tubes filled with single malt Scotch whiskeys that exhibited these aromas strongly. After smelling the elements and Scotches, we got to try our hands at being master blenders. These guys have a really hard job. They have to blend 40 different Scotches so that the result always smells like Dewars. Yes, they do this all by smell. But just think of the interesting blends they would make if they tasted the 40 different Scotches! My blend was a disappointment. I thought I only added a little of the really peaty whiskey, but I must have added too much.

After our amateur attempts, we got to taste the results of the pros. Dewars uses a process called double aging. They basically age the Scotch, blend it, then age it some more. The first taste we had was the blend before the second aging. It was a nice Scotch, smooth and complex. We then tasted the finished product and it was an improvement over the first. Of course, they wouldn't have done things this way if there wasn't an easily discerned difference. A few other demos were done such as showing how adding some water to the Scotch improves the taste and aroma by taming the alcoholic heat.

Soon the infomercial, I mean event was over. The Scotch wasn't bad, the food was pretty good and we got a flask as a parting gift. All three of these things kept me warm on a chilly autumn night walk home.

If I May Be So Braisin'

2009-09-29T18:28:00.001-04:00

My father had a large repertoire of dishes that he prepared expertly. One of these dishes was by far the most requested, his pot roast. When family or friends were coming to visit, "Is Ray going to make his pot roast?" was the inevitable question. Not a pot roast always HIS pot roast. He was always more than happy to oblige. Now that Fall has arrived and a cool breeze is blowing, it's time to break out the Le Creuset and get braising.

Dad always pretty much followed a set game plan when tackling this dish. I go a little more improvisational based on what the market has and what kind of mood I'm in. There are a few key concepts in making a good pot roast or any braised dish for that matter. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Tough meat makes tender pot roast. This is not the time to break the bank on the whole tenderloin. Chuck makes a great pot roast. The fat and connective tissue dissolve during the long cooking process ending up in a succulent finished product.
Aromatics make the sauce. You need a good collection of aromatic vegetables to cook along with the meat to make the cooking liquid very flavorful. Remember the cooking liquid will be you final sauce. A great mixture is carrots, onions, celery and garlic. Leeks work great too. If you are feeling a little wild, bacon or pancetta are great additions.
To deglaze is devine. Browning the meat and the aromatic vegetables will leave lots of very flavorful bits stuck to the bottom of your cooking vessel. These are known as suqs or fond. Adding a liquid to the pot and scraping these off is known as deglazing. Some good liquids to use for deglazing are wine(my favorite), vinegar(old school and Dad's choice), or even apple cider. I like to use a liquid that is a little on the acidic side to cut through the richness of the dish.
Stock up. You can make a great pot roast using water as you braising liquid, God knows Dad did, but I like to use a good stock. Veal stock is the bomb here, but it is time consuming to make at home and hard to find in stores. Home made beef or chicken stock work great as well. If using store bought, be sure to get low sodium so you can control the seasoning level. You don't have to use just stock, in fact it's better to mix things up a bit. I use stock and wine, but stock and water works great as well.
Veg out. This tip is two fold. You have to have patience making a pot roast, it may take 3-5 hours to get it perfect. So rent "The Seven Samurai" from Netflix and pull up the comfy chair. The second meaning is discard the vegetables that cooked with the meat when there is about one hour of cooking time left. Those veg have given their all and there isn't much left to them at this point. Throw in the vegetables that will accompany the dish now. Carrots and pearl onions are classic. Peas work really well as do mushrooms, but these you would add just before serving.

So in a more linear fashion, here is an attack plan for your pot roast.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat up vegetable oil in a dutch oven or other large cooking vessel with a lid.

Brown pot roast well on all sides. Remove to platter. Pour out most of the fat.

Sweat you aromatics in the pan until soft.

Deglaze pan

Put roast back in pan along with any juices that accumulated on the platter

Add braising liquid(s) until the liquid level is 1/3 to 2/3 of the way up the roast.

Bring to boil

Cover and place in oven

After one hour remove from oven and flip roast

Cook additional 1-2 hours checking on roast every 30 minutes. Cook until a fork will go in fairly easy, but meets some resistance.

When the meat is at this point, strain the cooking liquid, retaining the cooking liquid.

Add the liquid back to the pot along with your new vegetables.

Cook until a fork easily goes into and comes out of the meat with no resistance.

Thicken cooking liquid with flour, a beurre manie(butter kneaded with flour, my preference) or corn starch mixed with water.

It's best to let the pot roast sit a few hours or even overnight before serving.

Serve with mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes or buttered noodles and a nice red wine.

It might take a try or two to get the procedure down, but it's so worth it. Thanks Dad, still miss you.

Taking the Cure: Charcuterie Class at the FCI Part 3

2009-09-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

Every obstacle possible was thrown in my way as I tried to make it to the last session of charcuterie class at the French Culinary Institute. Just missing the bus, construction on the train tracks, and other wrenches were thrown my way as I hurried to Broadway and Grand. I made it to the kitchen with just a few minutes to spare for the most interesting class yet.

First up was saucisson a l'ail, garlic sausage with pistachios. A version of this makes its way onto just about every charcuterie plate. We cubed up some pork butt and mixed it with TenderQuick(salt and nitrate mixture), sugar, black pepper, red wine(very cold) and garlic. We chilled this down a bit before giving it a medium grind and mixing in the nuts. This was put into a medium beef casing so it was a fairly fat sausage. We pooled are sausages and they were put into a water bath to cook.

While are current project was simmering away, last weeks marque project, the foie gras terrine, was given a taste test. OH MY GOD, it was good, very, very, good. Getting elbow deep in duck liver was so worth it.

The garlic sausage was done by lunchtime, so they added an additional element to the meal. They too were, very, very good. They did pack a powerful garlic punch. A pungency that would certainly preclude them from a first date menu. but would satisfy Francophiles everywhere.

Our last hands on challenge was bratwurst. Bratwurst are emulsified sausage. You have to make the meat and the fat play nice and mix together as making a mayonnaise or a vinaigrette. After the ingredients goes through the grinder, they get to take a spin in a food processor with some crushed ice to make a smooth paste. Before it could be stuffed in a casing, this mixture had to be cooled down.

While our bratwurst was cooling its heels, Chef Pascal announced he had a surprise, he would demo how to make blood sausage. Making sausages in general is not the most genteel undertaking, but making blood sausage was a very messy process. The kind of project you do in other people's kitchens. The family story of Grandpa John unsuccessfully passing on his Polish blood sausage recipe was writ large in the aftermath of this undertaking.

All too soon, our bratwurst was cooked, our stations were cleaned, and goodbyes were said. This was a very fun, but far too short of a class. I think we need to reconvene next year to taste the prosciutto Chef Pascal made.

Taking the Cure: Charcuterie Class at the FCI Part 2

2009-09-20T14:40:00.000-04:00

Throughout the class, Dan Akroyd portraying Julia Child saying "Save the liver!" is on endless loop in my head. In my hand in an entire lobe of foie gras I am painstakingly removing veins from, with my fingers. It kind of like playing with the most expensive can of PlayDo ever.

Saturday's class brought us into the world of pates and terrines, mixtures of ground meat, fat, and various flavorings that are slowly cooked. We would be making a country pate out of pork shoulder and a foie gras terrine out of well, foie gras. Therefore, liver would be playing a starring role today, sans fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The country pate was up first. We had to roughly chop some pork, some fat back and some pork liver to get the party started. The tough part was removing the skin from the liver. Sometimes, it came off without a fight, most often is hung on with a tenacious death grip. All the above ingredients were put into a large bowl with salt, sugar, white pepper, garlic, some armagnac and some other spices. All this was gently mixed together by hand. Being elbow deep in ice cold liver was not something I am accustomed to doing so early on a Saturday morning. This mixture was transferred to a caul fat lined terrine and cooked in a water bath until the internal temperature reached 145 degrees Fahrenheit. This has to sit for a while to reach maximum flavor, so I don't know how it turned out yet. This is not a class for the immediate gratification set.

We got a little break to taste last weeks ham(Yum!) and to watch Chef Pascal demo the making of a dry sausage. Then it was on to the foie gras terrine. Chef demoed how to clean the foie gras then it was our turn. If you did not dwell on the fact that you were picking through some ducks' extra fatty liver, the task was fine. It did not have a livery consistency, more like butter. In fact, it even looked a lot like butter. Butter that had veins running though it, but what the heck. This was marinaded in salt, paprika, pepper, Sauternes, and Cognac. We will have to wait until next Saturday to see how well this turned out.

In the interim, we got to taste our creations from last week. The salami "Slim Jims" came out great. The pancetta had a great flavor to it. The duck confit was also a winner. One of our classmates crisped up the skin on one of the legs for some extra tastiness. He was very, very happy.

Daniel Boulud Dinner at the James Beard House

2009-09-16T20:35:00.000-04:00

"You win the award for having the hair style closest to James Beard!" exclaimed Chef Boulud. "Thank you Chef" I some what sheepishly replied. That's what I get for sitting underneath a photo of James Beard and being, how you say, folliclely challenged.

There was a bit of electricity in the air as I made my way to 167 West 12th Street in Manhattan on Monday. Even though the entire pantheon of culinary deities have cooked there, there is something special about having Daniel Boulud stopping by and whipping up dinner. Even some of the James Beard staffers, who have seen it all, eaten it all, had an excited glint in their eyes.

For those of you who do not know Chef Boulud, his is the typical immigrant story. Young chef from Lyon, France, comes to America, is showered with every accolade available to a chef. builds restaurant empire. Well, maybe it isn't the typical immigrant story, but you get my drift.

Dinner began with hors d'oeuvres in the backyard. How I covet that backyard in the city, but I digress. A fine champagne from Marc Hebrat got the diners into a festive mood. An array of fine starters soon began arriving from the kitchen, the gazpacho and the tomato basil arancini being standouts.

We took our seats inside and dinner itself began in earnest. The chef responsible for the course came out and said a few words about it while we hungrily devoured it. With so many great restaurants in your empire, you also have a small villages population of chefs working for you. In Daniel's case, a whole lot of really talented, creative chefs in your retinue.

In a dinner like this, it is often difficult to pick a favorite course. I would have to choose the sweet corn agnolotti in this case. It was just bursting with the concentrated flavors of summer.

Eventually, the man himself, Chef Boulud appeared at our table. We had a very enjoyable time talking to the Chef about the dinner, his restaurants, and other culinary topics. He was very gracious with his time with us because I found out later he had to go to another event later that same evening.

All too soon, we had licked the last morsel off our plates and had to consider the trip home. We dragged our happily satiated selves to the PATH train back to NJ, relishing a magical night.

Taking the Cure: Charcuterie Class at the FCI Part 1

2009-09-13T18:52:00.000-04:00

Charcuterie, the art of preserving meat was born out of necessity in the time before refrigeration. Today we embrace it because it just tastes so darn good. Any art that gave us bacon deserves further study. To that end I returned to the French Culinary Institute for a three Saturday class.

It was deja vu all over again walking into the locker room at the French Culinary Institute. I was even found my old locker free and waiting for my use. I quickly donned my chef's uniform and was about to leave when I was besieged by requests for lessons on how to tie the neckerchief. Once my satorial lesson was over, I climbed the stairs back to the kitchen where I spent six months of Saturdays learning the basics of French cuisine. This time, I was going to learn the intricacies of charcuterie. The giant pig laying in front of the class left little doubt on the source of today's protein.

Chef Pascal would be our instructor in all things cured and aged. He has quite the sense of humor. Chef had the class laughing even before roll was taken. As we went around the class introducing ourselves, it soon became apparent that about 2/3 of the class was from NJ. But average that in with a student flying in for the weekend classes from Canada, a woman here for a few months from the Philippines, and one student from Australia and you have quite the geographically diverse class!

Class soon began in earnest with Chef Pascal butchering the 210 pound star of our class, the pig he named Fifi. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, Fifi was reduced to tenderloins, racks, bellies, and other primal cuts of pork. Chef took that carcass apart with such skill and ease that Tony Soprano probably had Chef on speed dial. Chef Pascal then demoed how to turn a pork butt into prosciutto. Since the process takes about a year, we will not get to taste the one he made in class. He did have some others at different stages of their aging, including one that was ready to eat. It certainly was great tasting and I may have to take a trip back in a year to found out how ours came out.

We left the porcine world for a while to make some duck confit. This time we got to join in the fun. We had to make the cure mix and bone out two duck legs. After a short cure they will be cooked in copious amounts of duck fat. They will be kept in the fat as it cools and forms a covering over the duck meat. In the old days this was done for food preservation as it will keep the duck meat for about six months. Now, it is mostly done because it tastes so darn good.

Class was really rolling at a fast pace now. We jumped right in making the cure to make pancetta, Italian bacon. It differs from American bacon in that it is not smoked. These will be ready next week, so I will have to dig up some good recipes to make with it.

Lastly, we made what Chef called Italian salami "Slim Jims". These are just really thin salamis. This was the most involved preparation of the day. Both pork and beef had to be cut into cubes then ground. Spices were mixed into the meat along with some sugars. The sugars were not to make the sausage sweet, it was a snack for the bacteria. Yes, we wanted bacteria in our salami. We would add a culture of a lacto bacillus to our salami and promote its growth. This good bacteria would prevent the growth of bad bacteria. It is sometimes left to chance to have this happen, but Chef doesn't like leaving things to chance.

Stuffing the meat into the casing proved a little challenging. The casings would only fit on one of the stuffing machines, so we all had to wait in line for that one. The act of stuffing it self was not as easy as it seemed and some mishaps did occur. One casing burst with a sound so loud our ears were ringing! Never would I have thought that a little artificial casing would blow up sounding like a gunshot.

We have to finish up our salamis at home. We had to let them ferment over night in the oven to get the good bacteria going. We then have to let them hang out in a place that is 50-65 degrees for 4-5 days to dry. They are sitting behind me right now in the wine refrigerator aging away. It's going to be a long 4-5 days.

Pork, the Other Wait Meat

2009-09-08T13:29:00.002-04:00

Now, before you all start shooting off e-mails about one of the most egregious typos ever, I intended to type the word wait. This may seem a weird play on words until you realize the most important ingredient in cooking a pork shoulder is patience.

Until Labor Day, I have never cooked a pork shoulder outdoors. I've cooked near everything else, but the pinnacle of outdoor cooking, the pork butt, had not yet graced my grill. Yes, I know that many BBQ purists will insist that you can't cook a proper pork butt on a gas grill, but us urban dwellers have to make do.

I started the process in the morning by giving my butt a good rub down. My pork butt that is. While I am usually a totally make it from scratch kind of guy, I discovered that Bone Suckin' Sauce Seasoning Rub really works well. It is probably cheaper to make it myself but I couldn't resist the siren song of that product. After liberally coating my butt, my pork butt, with the rub I let it have a nice six hour nap in the fridge while I indulged in the Ghost Hunters marathon on TV. Hey, we all have our guilty pleasures. I took the pork butt out of the fridge about an hour before it went on the grill to allow it to come up to room temperature.

The one drawback of using a gas grill in an endeavor like this is the lack of a smoky flavor in the meat. Some of the more deluxe models of grills have smoker boxes where you can throw in some wood chips of your choosing. In my case, I had a cheap metal box that you fill with soaked wood chips and place on a burner before you start the meat. You could also just wrap some wood chips up in aluminum foil, poke some holes in it, and place that on the burners. In no time at all, my grill was generating a nice oak smoke. So nice that E forced me to close all the windows in the condo. The pork butt was placed in the grill and cooked over a nice low 250 degree indirect heat.

E had seized control of the TV so no more Ghost Hunters for me as the meat gently cooked away for 3 1/4 hours. It was a smallish butt, only about 2 1/2 pounds, so that's why it cooked up so quick. No you see the need for patience when 3 1/4 hours is akin to microwaving the dish! I cooked it to an internal temperature of 185 degrees F.

I let the meat rest for a while and began to pull. Well, hack at with a knife was more accurate. I did get a beautiful smoke ring and the meat on the outside of the butt was falling apart. The internal meat still had some body so appropriate measures had to be taken. It did have a lovely flavor. The flavor was enhanced by a vinegary, Eastern North Carolina type BBQ sauce. I just feel that this type of sauce works best for my palate. Feel free to slather on your sauce of choice if you decide to play along at home.

A good Labor Day it was. I finally tackled pork butt on the grill. I have a few tricks in mind the next time I do this to make it more like a true BBQ butt. Now if I could get E to allow me to put a smoker out on the deck.....

Hi, Thanks for Coming! Do You Mind Cooking?

2009-09-07T10:47:00.010-04:00

Our good friend L called and invited us to Connecticut for a Labor Day celebration. Having tired of living in a 200 square foot studio co-op and a desire to be closer to her family, L decamped from Manhattan to the greener shores of the Long Island Sound. Always up for a little trip, we readily agreed.

Not wanting to come empty handed I was struggling to think of something to make. L was not completely sure what she was going to be serving, so I settled on a dessert as the best course. I was wandering through the produce section of Whole Foods looking at all of summer's bounty when I spied the Meyer lemons. Meyer lemons are originally from China and are thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange. They do have a sweeter flavor and a tangerine scent about them so this may be true. I grabbed some lemons with the thought of making a tart.

So further thinking led to visions of people gathered around a bowl with spoons picking at the remains of what was a tart but did not quite survive the trip intact. A little web searching led me to a recipe for a Meyer lemon loaf with a Meyer lemon curd to go with it. Perfect , I thought , as I started to whip it up.The loaf and the curd came together without a hitch. Feeling brave, I tackled the tarte tatin again. This time it came out much improved.

E stayed up too late watching her beloved Cal Bear's football, so I made the trek to Connecticut myself. I did meet my friend JL at Grand Central and we took the train up north together. L met us at the train station and we drove to her house. After some chatting and some wine, it was time to prepare dinner. I heard L chirp up from the kitchen, "John, would you mind grilling the tenderloin and the shrimp?". "Sure L, no problem.", I replied heading out to the deck, tongs in hand. No matter how far I get from my kitchen another one always beckons.

A Tarte Tatin Too Far

2009-09-03T11:28:00.005-04:00

"Honey, you can make me one of those for my birthday" I heard E exclaim after watching Anne Burrell whip up a tarte tatin on The Food Network. Even though it required me to face my culinary nemesis, caramelizing sugar, I replied "Sure dear, no problem."

The day before her birthday, I went to grab "The Joy of Cooking" off the shelf as that would certainly have a recipe for a tarte tatin. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied "The Bouchon Cookbook". Still on a bit of a high after the dinner at Per Se, I grabbed it off the shelf. I paged through the stunning photography on my way to the index. Talk about food porn! This cookbook should be sold in a plain brown wrapper. Anyway, a quick scan of the index had me turning to the pages with the recipe.

The recipe wasn't that difficult, just a bit time consuming. The recipe for the pate brise was unusual, but it worked. You mixed half the flour with all the butter till it was combined. The rest of the flour was then added and mixed. A quarter cup of ice water was added and the dough was mixed until it just came together. Usually water is added gradually to take into account humidity, temperature and other variables. In this case, just chuck all the water in. Hey, it's Thomas Keller's recipe, I'm pretty sure he knows what he is doing. I divided the dough into two parts. I put one in the freezer for another project down the road, the other went into the fridge for the next day's tarte.

Many recipes for tarte tatin have you make the caramel first then add the apples. In this recipe, the sugar, butter and apples are added to the pan and a caramel is slowly achieved. I need to emphasize the slowly part. This step took about one hour. The recipe mentioned the length of this step, so I was prepared. It did not prepare me for how hard it would be to gauge the state of the caramelizing. With about three pounds of apples crammed into the pan, it was hard to judge what was going on in the bottom of the pan. Chef Keller stated that a dark amber color needs to be achieved before putting the tarte into the oven as the caramel would not get any darker. Wouldn't you know I took the caramelizing just a little too far. I picked up an apple and saw a very, very, very dark amber caramel staring back at me. Keeping my caramel batting average at 0, I messed up yet again.

I grabbed the dough from the fridge that I had already rolled out into a round and folded over twice as the recipe stated. As I tried to unfold it, the dough had glued itself firmly onto the plate. I tried to gently pry it off, but it just ripped. It ripped in a big way. BIG WAY. I had to re-roll out the dough, hoping that the extra work would not make the crust tough. I got the newly formed disk on top of the apples and popped it in the oven, hoping for the best.

I pulled it from the oven when the crust was nice and golden. I let it sit for 30 minutes before unmolding as the recipe said. I slid a knife around the perimeter and inverted the pan on a plate. About 1/3 of the tarte decided that it liked it much better in the pan than on this nice white plate and stayed behind. I muttered a few words, gee willekers not among them. I heard E on the phone with her mother, "No we haven't had the tarte tatin yet. I hear John swearing so something hasn't gone right."

I manged to piece things together pretty well. I cut off the best looking piece I could find to serve to E. A little vanilla ice cream goes a long way in prettying up things. We both took a bite and.....it was good. You could taste that the caramel was took dark, but E seemed to love it. She is not shy in expressing her opinions about my cooking, so I have to believe her. But all I could see was the caramel mocking me. One day caramel, one day!

I Got a Golden Ticket! My Day with Chef Thomas Keller

2009-08-30T15:49:00.009-04:00

I have seen the light! More exactly, I was fed the light. Saturday's dinner at Per Se was definitely one of the best meals I have had in my life.

Several months ago, I received an e-mail from American Express. It was their standard monthly e-mail listing of upcoming events for cardmembers. There, among the concerts and sporting events, was Chef Thomas Keller doing a demo at the French Culinary Institute followed by dinner at Per Se. I was so in. I immediately lunged for the phone to dial in when I noticed that tickets were not on sale yet. As the days wore on, the memory of the event slowly faded. Another e-mail from Amex reminded me of the event, and it has been on sale for some time now. This time I did lunge for the phone and dialed in for a reservation. I was lucky and space was still available. It was a total Charlie Bucket finding the golden ticket in a Wonka bar moment.

I waited for the day with the same excitement of a 6 year old waiting for Christmas. When the day finally arrived, I had to find chores around the house to keep myself from showing up 4 hours early and pacing impatiently in front of the FCI. The rain that was falling all day ended as I left for the bus to NYC and the FCI.

I entered the FCI and was directed to the theater where all the big time demos are done. If you've seen "Chef Story" on PBS, you've seen this room. There before us, was an array of pastry from Chef Keller's Bouchon Bakery. It was hard to pick one to eat as they all appeared wonderful. I took a seat and waited with bated breath for the class to begin. Chef Keller and some assistants were a blur of activity getting things prepared for the demo. Satisfied that the mise en place was complete, Chef worked his way through the audience greeting all the participants.

The demo was part cooking class part philosophic discussion. Chef Keller explained his view on the importance of ingredients by talking about some of his suppliers. The suppliers he use are just as dedicated to creating the perfect ingredient as Chef Keller is in creating the perfect dish. The lady who in Vermont who makes his butter that had to go out and buy more cows to create the amount of butter that was ordered. The sheep farmer that can document everything about the lives of his livestock. The complete perfectionism of his Italian olive oil producer. These products are outstanding because the people behind them are outstanding.

Most chef's are expert multi-taskers and Chef Keller was no exception. Chef Keller was able to carry on a discussion of the various issues of organic, sustainable, and being green while poaching a lobster tail in butter and making a corn pudding. Some very interesting issues were raised as he made a lobster stock. What should a farm that has farmed naturally for decades but does not want to pay the government to have an organic label slapped on their produce be called? Is it better to support a farmer that does incredible artisinal products but has to ship them to the restaurant?

The actual cooking being done was not overshadowed by the discourse. We were witness to true culinary alchemy. None of the dishes demoed were out of the reach of a home cook. The ingredients were common, but what elevated them to the celestial level? One word, technique. The lobster was not simply boiled. It was boiled for a few minutes then taken apart. The tail meat was removed from the shell and poached in beurre blanc(YUM!). The claws and legs went back into the water for a few more minutes of cooking. The bodies were cleaned and used to make a lobster stock. The meat was removed from the legs using a rolling pin. Who ever thought of that was a freakin' genius, it worked so well. Corn kernels were juiced then heated in a sauce pan. The natural corn starch made the puree thicken into a corn pudding. It makes perfect sense that that would occur, but again, who thinks like that. The answer is obvious, Chef Keller. During a Q & A session after the demo, Chef left us with this pearl of wisdom, cooking is all about product and technique.

With the demo over, it was time for round 2. This necessitated a wardrobe change as I needed to throw on a suit for the dinner at Per Se. Per Se is located in the Time Warner Center. The word urban mall is bandied about when discussing the Time Warner Center and it is pretty apt. A mall with the world's most exclusive and pricey food court that is! I was a few minutes early so I browsed Williams Sonoma trying to cool down from the infinitely hot subway station. I took a series of escalators to the fourth floor and entered Willie Wonka's chocolate factory, oh I mean Per Se.

Before dinner proper started, we were treated to Champagne and various appetizers. Among the offerings were the famous salmon cornets. This is a salmon tartare served in a cone shaped tuile with a red onion creme fraiche. This is Chef Keller's philosophy in a bite or two. Really high quality ingredients, prepared with the utmost attention to technique. They also taste amazing. In one or two bites you get a spectrum of flavors and textures. While we were greedily shoving little bites of heaven into our mouths and washing them down with gulps of Champagne, Chef Keller was leading small groups on tours of the kitchens. We were going to get a glimpse of the guts of the chocolate factory.

Entering into the first kitchen you are blinded by how clean and shiny everything is. I'm sure there are operating rooms that are not this clean. You then notice some things that make these kitchens special. There is a flat panel tv showing a live view of the French Laundry's kitchen in Yountville, CA. A quick scan of the ceiling reveals a camera giving a reciprocal feed of Per Se's kitchen. You notice intriguing signs hanging on the walls. The phrase "Sense of Urgency" is posted under every clock. The word "finesse", along with it's dictionary entry is over the exit to the dining room. You may have noticed that I have been using the plural when referring to Per Se's kitchens. That was not a typo as they have two. One for the main dining room and one for the private dining room. The coolest feature was a room dedicated to the production of chocolate. See, the Willie Wonka references were not totally out of left field.

We sat done for dinner and the parade of amazement began. A server approached the table with a bottle of Champagne. First, I thought is was the same Champagne we were drinking when I noticed the tell tale shield shaped label of Dom Perignon. Holy shit, they were pouring Dom Freakin' Perignon, vintage 1999. It was like tasting stars, as the Monk Dom Perignon is credited with saying. The first course was the perennial favorite "Oyster and Pearls", a sabyon of tapioca with oysters and caviar. This is one of those dishes were you scratch your head when reading the description, but totally get it before the first bite is swallowed. These disparate sounding ingredients form a delicious whole. The next course was a panzanella salad with heirloom tomatoes and lobster claw meet. No mere hunks of bread for this panzanella, a piece of bread was sandwiched between two silpats and toasted in the oven until it was paper thin and crisp. Our old friends the butter poached lobster and the corn pudding made their appearance. The lobster was great but that corn pudding was a standout, sweet, creamy and corny in a good summertime kind of way. These two dishes were paired with a white burgundy that was absolutely dynamite.

We moved on to a Snake River Ranch steak with a sauce bordelaise that was great. There was only a small amount of sauce, so there was no place for the steak to hide any imperfections. Needless to say, no imperfections were apparent. A meritage from California was served with this course. A meritage is California's ode to the red wines of Bourdeaux, made from a blend of grapes. I have run out of superlatives in describing the wines served with this dinner. The wine was no exception, it was spectacular. Dinner began to wind down, the cheese course came followed by a pair of desserts. The desserts were paired with a Loire Valley dessert wine that was great. It wasn't overly sweet and had a nice acidity to it. It paired well with the strawberry sorbet and collection of small pastries that were served.

The night came to a close and we were presented with two gift bags! They contained a copy of Chef Keller's latest cookbook "Under Pressure" along with olive oil, wine, pickled veg tables and other goodies. I struggled under the weight of the gift bags into the Wonkavator. Oops, sorry, real world no Wonkavator. I struggled under the weight of the gift bags onto the escalator and into the night, thinking about one of the best culinary experiences of my life.

Bringing the Heat

2009-08-27T11:37:00.002-04:00

This year I planted a cayenne pepper plant just for fun. The plant care tag placed in the soil of the plant said that it was produced a lot of fruit. Man, talk about truth in advertising! I've harvested about a dozen pepper so far and there are about a dozen growing on the plan right now. This is just one little plant in one window box! So, when life gives you cayenne peppers, you have to make Cajun food.

In my usual improvisational manner, I set out collecting ingredients. I got an inspiration to do shrimp and andouille sausage over grits. I bought a half pound of large shrimp, a 15 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes, and an andouille sausage. I raided the pantry and the fridge for the rest of the ingredients and I was ready to go.

I sliced one Vidalia onion thinly, one sweet red bell pepper was cut into strips, two cloves of garlic were sliced thinly, and to add some fireworks two cayenne peppers were sliced thinly. I peeled and deveined the shrimp. The shells were stored in the freezer for a future shrimp stock. I cut eight ounces of the andouille on a bias. With everything prepped, I was ready to cook.

I heated a sautoir over high heat then added just a teaspoon of oil. I browned the sausage and removed it to a bowl. The onions, red bell pepper, and cayenne peppers were cooked in the same pan as the andouille. When the vegetables were soft, I added the garlic. The garlic was cooked until fragrant. At this point I added a 15 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes with their juices. Be sure to scrape up any tasty bits stuck to the bottom of the pan(sucs in chef speak). Let this cook for about 15-20 minutes until it starts to resemble a sauce. At this point add the andouille sausage and the shrimp. Cook until the shrimp is just cooked through.

You can serve this with some nice crusty bread, pasta, or as I did it over some cheesey grits. the cayenne peppers and the andouille sausage added a nice spiciness to the dish. The grits were the perfect counter point to the piquantness. A nice cold beer, a glass of Riesling or a Gewurztraminer pair nicely with this dish. Pop in a zydeco CD to set the N'walins mood and you'll be transported to the Big Easy.

Hoboken Heirloom Tomato Festival

2009-08-24T10:09:00.007-04:00

Hoboken loves it festivals. Art, religion, ancestry, and just plain good times are celebrated with equal gusto here in the Mile Square City. Every August for the past 10 years, Jersey's favorite summer crop gets the spotlight.

The Heirloom Tomato Festival is a low key affair, only occupying the passage way in front of the Hoboken Historical Museum. The physical size of the festival does not seem to diminish the buzz it generates judging by the lengthy queue of people waiting to pay for their bags of summer's bounty. An equally long queue was formed at the highlight of the festival, the tasting table. There, spread out in a sea of reds, yellow, purples and greens were about 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes cut up for your tasting pleasure. Pink brandywines, ramapos, yellow plum, mortgage lifters and others formed a gastronomic gauntlet for the festival goers to taste their way though. Each bite added to the lively discussion of the pros and cons of each variety.

The festival would not happen without the Catalpa Farms in Wantage, NJ. They provided the 1,000+ pounds of tomatoes along with corn, peppers, garlic, tomatillos and other products of their land. This is an event where everyone is a winner. The people get access to wonderful, locally grown produce. By buying the produce, the people support the farm and the Hoboken Historical museum.

The late blight has played havoc with the tomato harvest in the Northeast. It was great to see one of NJ's icons, the tomato, alive , well and ready for its closeup.

Ed Mitchell, BBQ Maestro

2009-08-19T19:07:00.004-04:00

The mission of the James Beard Foundation is the promotion of American cuisine in all its varied forms. When people hear cuisine, they immediately think white table cloths, fine china and wine lists the size of phonebooks. But American cuisine encompasses myriad choices such as fine dining in San Francisco, lobster shacks in New England, and the smoky barbecue of the South.

Ed Mitchell is a legend among the BBQ cognoscenti. With numerous TV appearances, including beating Bobby Flay in a ribs throw down, he is getting noticed outside of his usual area. Judging by the lines for his food at the Big Apple BBQ, the message is being received.

I was very excited to hear that Ed had accepted an invitation to cook at the James Beard House and was packing up his pork for a trip up North. A sold out crowd was greeted with moonshine mojitos and some very tasty appetizers. I don't know what it is with pork liver, but like the "Swine and Wine" dinner a few weeks ago, a liver dish was the standout. In this case, it was liver pudding served on a ginger snap. A very strange sounding combination, but it really worked well. The zestiness of the ginger snap melded well with the richness of the liver pudding. The other appetizers were also well received, especially the bacon wrapped figs with goat cheese and the North Carolina mountain trout mousse with cracklin's.

In a break in the usual routine, we were invited to head out back and get our own pork for the first course. Both chopped pork and pulled pork were on offer for the diners to grab to make their own sandwiches with. Back at the table, cole slaw and bread were waiting to enhance the pork. Of course, it really did not need any enhancement. This is the dish that Ed is rightfully known for.

Fried green tomatoes were served with an arugula salad dressed with a bacon-sherry vinaigrette as a second course. All the components of this dish worked really well together. The zippy acidity of the Fire Road sauvignon blanc from New Zealand proved to be the perfect foil to this dish.

A grilled pork loin with beautiful grill marks was the next dish to grace our plates. While the pork was excellent, it was upstaged a bit by the sweet potato hash.

Next up were the Flay felling ribs with macaroni and cheese. They were indeed ribs worthy of accolades, they were simply falling off the bone mounds of goodness. A banana pudding rounded out the dinner that was over all too soon.

Ed Mitchell came out after dinner bringing with him the other chefs that helped him prepare this wonderful dinner. Lauren Thompson, Executive Chef of The Pit, Corey Palakovich, Executive Chef of Empire Eats and Matt Scofield, Chef at Sitti all received well deserved kudos from the crowd. As the Q and A session was going on, a huge storm was raging outside. This provoked a few more questions to be asked as no one wanted to venture out in the tempest.

It's going to be a long wait till the next Big Apple BBQ after getting this extended taste of Ed's food. A road trip to NC may have to be planned.

Your Food is Ready for Its Closeup

2009-08-17T10:59:00.006-04:00

Since I can't fit all of you into my kitchen when I'm whipping up some dish, I have to try to share it the best way I can. Since the last time I tried to e-mail an aroma did not work out, I have to take photos. Here are a few things I've learned along the way.

1) Shoot your food RAW. While you may indeed be taking a photo of uncooked ingredients, I meant to take a photo of your food in the RAW format if your camera can do it. RAW is an uncompressed format that basically saves the info from the sensor in your camera as is. It allows the photographer to fix a multitude of sins later without affecting the original image. You can always revert to the original without any ill effects. Every time you save a JPEG file, it degrades a little bit from the compression. Downsides to RAW files are that they are huge compared to a JPEG and you will have to convert it to a JPEG at some point if you want to share it.

2) Play with your camera. Without film processing costs hanging over one's head, digital photography lets one shoot with abandon. Just look at all the photos on Flickr, Picassa, etc. Feel free just to shoot at things you see around the house. Be sure to try all the controls on your camera and learn how they affect your photos. Play with natural light, flash, etc just to get comfortable with the effects. When taking a photos of your food, take a lot. You can just delete them if you are not happy with them.

3) Take off the training wheels. You can take great photos letting the camera do all the thinking. I take many photos this way myself. Learning how to set aperture, shutter speed, etc your self will open up new creative outlets for your shots. Aperture is especially important to food photography as it allows you to control how much of the dish is in focus. The larger your aperture(small f number), the less depth of focus. So if you want to concentrate on that perfect tomato in the front, open up that aperture and focus on the tomato. Done correctly, the background will be rendered in an agreeable blur. This blur is call bokeh in photo lingo.

4) Get up close and personal with your food. Taking a photo of the entire dish is great. However, sometimes just concentrating on one part of the dish makes a more compelling photo. You can choose to make a grill mark, the pooling of juices on the plate, or a bit of parsley garnish on top to be the focal point of your photo. Try shooting your food from different vantage points. Look for interesting angles that will make your food pop.

Taking photos of you food opens up an another creative channel in which you can express yourself. It's also lends a more lasting quality to something as ephemeral as food. Long after the dish is eaten and the dishes washed, you have a photographic souvenir of you deeds in the kitchen.

Getting Sweet on Amy's Bread

2009-08-12T13:57:00.006-04:00

Approximately once a month, the James Beard Foundation hosts an event called Beard on Books. These events bring in authors of culinary books to read from their works and answer questions from the audience. Many food world luminaries have graced the dais here: Danny Meyer, Alex Prudhomme, David Kamp, and Barbara Fairchild just to name a few. Today Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree of the beloved Amy's Bread read from their new cookbook.

Since the first loaf exited the Hell's Kitchen(the NYC neighborhood not the TV show) oven in 1992, Amy's Bread has become a NYC institution. Chef Scherber envisioned a neighborhood bakery where locals came in to literally pick up their daily bread. As the bakery became more popular, the public requested sweeter offerings. Initially reluctant, Amy's Bread began to offer cakes, cookies, pastries and more. Now, the bakery has a separate kitchen and bakers to prepare these sweet things. The growth of the this side of the business led Scherber and Dupree to write a cookbook of their recipes, "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread".

The event at the Beard House was fun as usual. A few treats are usually offered at these readings, but Chefs Scherber and Dupree went all out. A table was filled with two types of quiche, scones, cookies, chubbies and other delights. The reading itself was also delightful. Scherber and Dupree traded off regaling the audience with passages from the book. Besides the usual recipes, the book contains some historical tales of Amy's Bread and profiles of some of their customers and employees. A particularly fun story was the profile of one of their customers still going strong at 105! It appears that while an apple a day keeps the doctor away, a slice of cake a day keeps the Grim Reaper at bay.

After a Q and A session, I purchased a copy of the book and chatted briefly with Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree. They graciously signed the book for me before I had to rush back to work.

I did not have a chance to go over the book in detail yet. It does have some amazing photos taken by Aimee Herring. Another feature I really like is that the recipes are given in both weights and volume. It certainly looks like this book will be seeing lots of action in the upcoming month.

Jersey Journeys: Boblink Dairy

2009-08-10T09:30:00.005-04:00

This is the first in a series of posts exploring NJ's diverse culinary bounty. A chance to show NJ as more than the corridor of refineries along the Turnpike or the montage at the beginning of "The Sopranos".

If I were to show you photos of northeastern NJ and asked you to guess where the picture was taken, NJ would probably be low on the list of states. The rolling, bucolic scenery is more reminiscent of VT than an area about an hours drive from New York City. Here nestled between state parks, lakes, farms and more legends than you can shake a stick out(check out Weird NJ) is Bobolink Dairy. The owners Jonathon White and Nina Stein White are deeply committed to creating artisan cheese and bread in the most natural ways possible. This means treating their cows with respect and allowing them to be, well, cows. There are not treated as some kind of milk production machines. Bobablink Dairy has been around since 2003, so they are not just reacting to the sustainable hype.

The drive from Hoboken to Bobalink Dairy was quite pleasant. The roadside became more rural with each click of the odometer. Cresting one hill, I was treated to a beautiful mountain vista. That was totally unexpected and I'm still trying to figure out what mountains they were. A sign for the dairy came into view and I turned onto a small country lane. A few more turns and the dairy itself appeared. A sign pointed to the driveway. Only I didn't see a driveway, I saw what looked like a hiking trail. A reconnaissance mission proved that this small, eroded, path heading steeply down hill was indeed, the driveway. I pointed the Saab towards it and hoped for the best.

The driveway looked far worse than it actually was and I parked next to an old oak tree. A quick look around showed that they were not pandering to tourists. The weathered barn lent a certain air of authenticity to the place. I walked into the commercial area of the dairy and was met by a case full of cheese. Not the sanitized, triple wrapped cheese on your grocers shelves, but the real deal covered in molds of many colors cheese. A rack behind the cheese carried many loaves of rustic looking breads. This was going to be good.

A person quickly appeared removing the plastic gloves from his hands. He was busy actually making cheese when I came in. A conversation about the different cheeses they made and quickly segued into me tasting them. The first thing I noticed about these cheeses was the texture. They all had a much looser, crumbly texture than commercial cheeses of the same type. The cheeses did seem to posses deeper, more complex flavors as well. I purchased a cheddar and a softer cheese they call Drumm. Along with my cheese purchase, an olive and onion ciabbatta loaf came home with me. I made my way back to the car, anxious to share my finds with E back home in Hoboken.

For any intrepid souls wanting to make the trek over to Bobalink Dairy here is there website with hours, how to sign up for a tour and how to sign up for a cheese making class:

http://www.cowsoutside.com/

Easy and to the Point

2009-08-06T20:25:00.005-04:00

I like fussing around in the kitchen making elaborate meals. I don't mind dicing, slicing, or even turning vegetables. I'll debone a chicken and I make stock. But sometimes, even I want to do something easy.

I just threw together some beef kebabs tonight. I couldn't go totally easy, so I marinaded the meat in olive oil, garlic, fresh thy

me and rosemary from the window box, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard and a little red wine vinegar. I had a cayenne pepper from the garden hanging around, so that go thrown into the mix as well. I tasted the marinade as I was making it and adjusted the amount of the ingredients to taste. I put in two pounds of beef and one thickly cut onion in the marinade

and let that sit for two hours.

When the two hours elapsed I put the meat onto a set of skewers by itself. I put the marinaded onions, along with a yellow bell pepper and some baby heirloom tomatoes on another set. I gave the vegetable skewers a light coating of olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper. Having the meat and vegetables on separate skewers allowed me to cook both to the proper degree of doneness. I popped the skewers on my dependable Weber grill and dinner was soon ready.

The vegetable came out beautifully. The were pretty to look at and had a wonderful flavor. The meat tasted great but was a little chewy. Next time we need to get a better cut of beef. Not bad for an improvisational week night meal.

Food, Feasts and Family

2009-08-04T20:05:00.002-04:00

Where would we be if we did not cook for each other? This question is usually simmering on a back burner somewhere in my mind, but Pollan's article on the decline of home cooking and Michael Ruhlman's insightful response to it, made me move it to the front of the stove.

So many of my memories are of family gatherings. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner before sunrise so that we can eat at Grandma's at 11AM. The wonderful smell of the turkey thankfully winning the aroma war with Staten Island's Fresh Kill land fill as we sped along to Bayonne. Peeling pounds of potatoes and trimming pounds of string beans on Christmas Eve. The wonderfully chaotic mess of the blue claw feast the day of the annual family crabbing outing.

These are powerful images that encourage me, maybe even compel me, to cook for family and friends. People who do not cook will never have the pleasure of seeing loved ones faces en rapt in eating something they prepared. It may not be the best, or sometimes even edible, but the love of preparing the dish seasons it perfectly.

If I did not cook and if my father did not cook, I would have been robbed of one last good memory of him. My father was suffering with mesothelioma and had spent the lion's share of November 2001 in the hospital. He was well enough to come home two days before Thanksgiving. He was not strong enough to make the meal himself, so he set up court in his kitchen and directed me on how to prepare all the dishes we would be serving that day. If there ever was a Thanksgiving were we truly gave thanks, it was that one. Dad did not live to see Christmas that year.

I now cook Thanksgiving dinner without Dad's input. I cook it for how many, or how few come. I cook that meal, and every meal, knowing that cooking for people is an act of love. People who just microwave some pre-cooked meal or just order in all the time are missing out on a huge part of connecting with people. If you cook a stranger a meal, they are now longer a stranger.

I Hope This Chicken is Cooked Before the Cock Crows

2009-08-02T18:46:00.004-04:00

Everything took more time than normal yesterday. The frittata I made for brunch seemed to take forever to prepare. I'm usually pretty quick in the knife skills department, but I seemed to be moving in slow motion. What were suppose to be quick shopping trips turned into shopping treks and the day slipped quickly by. We came home, did a few chores, then we sat down to relax. I preceded to relax too much and quickly fell asleep.

I eventually awoke and stumbled to get my wallet. I needed to go across the street to the grocery store to pick up some garam masala for the chicken tikka masala I was making for dinner. That's when I realized it was already after seven and dinner would be a long way off.

True to form, the A & P across the street did not have the needed spice mix. I had to walk over to the ShopRite about half a mile away. Luckily, the did have the needed spice mixture. I had to pick up a few other items just to make the walk seem more useful. I finally made it home and began dinner preparation in earnest.

I got my mise en place all set up and started up the grill to cook the chicken I had marinating in the refrigerator. I re-read the recipe and saw that I had a lot of simmering time coming up. A big oops! I didn't do a thorough enough job getting the marinade off of the chicken thighs and they stuck like glue to the grill. I was able to pry them off and get the other side cooked with some elbow grease and expletives.

The second side of the chicken grilled up fine and released its death grip on the barbecue without as much fuss as the first side. It was pretty smooth sailing after this. Getting everything prepped ahead of time prevented dinner from becoming breakfast. In the end, it was a tasty dinner. I don't know if it was the lateness of the hour or the tastiness of the food. When we eat the leftovers, I'll let you know.

A link to Grace Parisi's recipe in Food & Wine is here: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/chicken-tikka-masala

Porcine Perfection

2009-07-29T10:23:00.006-04:00

This little piggy went to market. This little piggy went home. This little pig had roast beef. This little piggy provided us with a ridiculously tasty dinner at the James Beard House.

A few months ago, the usual schedule e-mail from the James Beard Foundation arrived in my inbox. Scanning through the myriad choices, a dinner leaped from the page at me, "Swine and Wine". Keep the brown paper packages tied up with string, swine and wine are a few of my favorite things. My hand reached for the phone as if it had a mind of its own and I soon had a spot reserved.

I arrived at the James Beard House and made my way to the backyard for the reception. Soon Chef Christopher Rendell from Double Crown was making his way through the crowd with a roasted baby pig, his golden brown skin glistening. Oh yes, this evening was shaping up to be a very special meal.

The quicker the cooking crew made the suckling pig steamed buns, the quicker they were devoured. The pig was perfectly cooked and the sauce on the meat proved to be the perfect foil to the meat. The other hors d'oeuvres soon made their appearance. The hot and sour pig soup and the twice cooked pork belly with chili caramel were standouts from an array of stellar starters. Chef Brad Farmerie and Chef Christopher Rendell were on their game tonight. The Kings Ridge Riesling 2007 from Oregon provided the perfect wine quaff along with all this heavenly hog.

We made our way into the house and found our seats for the dinner proper. I was sitting with esteemed company, the wife of one of the chefs, the man who was in charge of the wine pairings, and the renown hamburger expert George Motz. While I have heard of him, I have never met him or seen a picture of him. His identity was revealed when his wife had us try to guess his occupation. My guess of pickle maker was not that far off.

All the courses ran from really good to out of the ball park great. The one dish that really rocked me back on my heels was the pork liver creme caramel. It was one of those dishes you initially approach with trepidation. Pork liver creme caramel, really? Yes really! It had such a rich, creamy consistency joined with the slightly sweet, luscious flavors that it just rocked. Rocked in a 1970's full on KISS concert with flames, explosions and lasers kind of rocking.

The wines served with all the courses were equally noteworthy. All the wines were from Oregon and they all matched the food perfectly. It's really had to highlight one of the wines here as the star of the evening, but the pinot noir was very interesting. It was a very earthy and complex pinot noir that really piqued my interest. It did serve as an excellent accompaniment with the spiced pork loin.

All to soon, the desert plates were being cleared. The caramelized brioche with wild blueberries that Pastry Chef Ryan Butler created was well received and put the proper exclamation point at the end of this dinner. The chefs and the rest of the cooking crew came upstairs and were given a well deserved round of applause. After a Q & A session, we were sent off with full bellies and the aura of having been in the midst of porcine perfection.

My Poor Blighted Tomato

2009-07-28T10:16:00.009-04:00

Two aspects of this condo that drove our decision to purchase it were the kitchen and the deck. We have an honest to goodness kitchen, not some area that can probably be used to cook in. The deck offers 80 Edenic square feet. It is so nice to have outdoor space to grill and try my hand at growing some grub.

My plants have been growing like crazy this year. Buckets of rain have been fallen nearly every day this summer spurring on my jungle like window boxes. My cayenne pepper plant is yielding a mad amount of peppers. Surprising given the fact that it's sharing a window box. I had high hopes for my tomato plant. Last year I just planted a cherry tomato plant in a window box and it produced fruit till November! This year I planted a normal size tomato plant in its own container and started fantasizing about all the recipes I will be creating with the fresh sweet products of my labor.

The tomato plant shot up like a weed and soon flowers were starting to form. Slowly the inevitable green fruit started to form. I patiently waited for the tomatoes to ripen on the vine. I finally had one turn a beautiful crimson shade and I plucked it from it perch. My heart sank when I turned

it over and saw that it was

affected by tomato blight. The cool, wet weather provided the perfect conditions for the tomato blight fungus to thrive throughout the northeast. My poor plant was not out of harm's way. The green

tomatoes still on the plant appear to be blight free so far. Only time will tell.

The Dude Free Pours

2009-07-26T08:30:00.002-04:00

Classic Films, Classic Cocktails
Originally uploaded by jdryzga

"How do you take your brandy? In a glass." That classic Humphrey Bogart line from "The Big Sleep" was only one of many highlights of the Classic Cocktails, Classic Films class at the Astor Center.

The title of the class immediately piqued my interest. I went on to read the details of the class and was struck by what a great idea it was, watch clips from classic films while having the cocktails you are seeing on the big screen. Straight up brilliance.

The class was given by Nora Maynard. You may know her from her columns in the blog The Kitchn, The Celluloid Pantry and Straight Up. She gave us a quick bio on her path to both film and cocktail geekdom while growing up in Ontario, Canada. Soon we had an ice gold Gibson in our hands and were enjoying an early scene from "The Thin Man". As the photo attached to this blog belies, I am no stranger to either the Thin Man movies or gin. If you have never seen "The Thin Man" and are a fan of humorous detective films and/or cocktails, it is well worth seeking out.

As the night went on, we were drinking Manhattans with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in "Some Like it Hot" and having a Sazerac with James Bond. Up to this point, we were given drinks already made. I was wondering what the array of cocktail implements were for? We got a chance to become a film noir bartender as we mixed up Ramos Gin Fizzes for the femme fatale in "The Big Sleep". This drink has a very unlikely list of ingredients and requires 5 minutes of shaking. That is not a typo, 5 minutes of shaking. The result is a thick, creamy drink with a very pleasant citrus flavor. It was thick enough to stand a straw up, the test of a good Ramos Gin Fizz.

From the world of film noir, we moved to the world of the Coen brothers with "The Big Lebowski". We, or at least I, learned that this film is based on "The Big Sleep". Seeing the films back to back, the similarities became quite apparent. Besides its film noir roots, "The Big Lebowski" had to be included because a cocktail nearly shares top billing with Jeff Bridges in this film, the White Russian. This is a very easy drink to make, one ounce vodka, one ounce coffee liqueur, and a splash of cream. As Nora was explaining the drink, she gave me the title of this blog. She said,"You can pretty much free pour this drink. The Dude free pours". I knew I had to use that line. I hope both The Dude and Nora abide.

Here's a recipe for the Ramos Gin Fizz adapted by Nora Maynard from Gary Regan:

2 ounces gin
1 ounce cream
3 drop orange flower water
1 fresh egg white
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
club soda or seltzer set aside for topping up drinks

Combine all ingredients, except club soda, in a shaker over ice. Wrap the shaker in a towel and shake for 5 minutes. The need for a towel will become apparent, the shaker gets extremely cold! It helps to have a partner to share shaking duties with. Strain into a tall glass and top up with a splash of club soda. Garnish with an orange wheel and a straw. Put on some film noirish music, make a few witty quips and enjoy!

2009-07-24T13:44:00.012-04:00

Our last day in Napa dawned blue and a little cooler than the last few days. Our agenda was pretty free this day. We had a 11:00AM tour at Opus One with the rest of the day open for improv.

We strolled though Yountville in the morning and stopped in front on Michael Chiarello's new restaurant Bottega. We stopped to read the menu and was quickly approached by a young guy. He asked us if we've eaten there yet. We told him no and he proceeded to tell us his tale. He and his girlfriend saw Chef Chiarello win on Top Chef Masters last night. That launched a decision to drive about 3 hours to eat at his place. That's dedication. The least we could do was call and make a reservation for a late lunch.

Opus One's winery is hard to miss. Even though it is set off from the highway, its position on top of a hill and unique architecture made it quite noticeable. We checked in with the concierge, their term not ours, and was introduced to our tour guide. The tour guide introduced herself and escorted us into another room to wait for the other members of the tour. The room we were waiting in was not some rustic paean to the agricultural roots of wine. Instead, we were surrounded by art and antiques not usually seen outside of museums. There were Miros and Braques on the wall along with a mirror that belonged to King Lois VIII of France. Wow. No wonder it was so difficult to book a tour here, they probably do background checks.

The tour guide did a wonderful job telling the history of Opus One, a joint project of Robert Mondavi and Baron Phillipe de Rothschild. Opus One only makes one wine, a Bordeaux blend with a California accent. The highlight of the tour for me was the barrel room. There in a totally climate controlled room are aging wines and new barrels stretching out in graceful arcs.

We finally got a chance to try the latest release of Opus One after about a 90 minute tour. It was a pretty spectacular wine that somehow did taste French and Californian at the same time.

Since it was just across the road, we stopped by the Robert Mondavi winery. It was a nice series of buildings, but after the Opus One, the regular Mondavis tasted a bit pedestrian. It could have just been that the wines were past their peak, we opted to taste some of the older Cabernets. One did surprise me with a mouthful of sediment. That was hard to deal with and retain a modicum of decorum.

It was now time for our lunch at Bottega. We entered and were seated at our table. The server approached and we had a moment of deja vu. Then it hit both us and the server, she waited on us at Auberge du Soleil! Well, it is kind of a small valley. Lunch was very good and boasted probably the best dish of the entire trip. The dish was an appetizer called bacon and eggs. This was a piece of crispy pork belly served with a breaded soft boiled egg, some preserved peppers and a slice of heirloom tomato. Every part of this dish was wonderful on its own and the sum was greater than the parts. The rest of the meal was a standout as well. At least it will be worth the drive for the young Top Chef fan!

Our last stop in Napa was Domaine Carneros. Domaine Carneros is the American cousin of Taittinger Champagne ensconced in its very own chateau. Even if their sparkling wine and piont noirs were not great, having a glass of wine on the veranda overlooking the vineyards would be worth the stop.

With the last sip of bubbly, our Napa trip was over. We turned the rent-a-car towards Danville and E's parent's house with not a little sadness. We had some really wonderful wines and some truly memorable meals. Time to get some pork belly to see if I can recreate bacon and eggs at home.

Leaping Stags and Honking Ducks

2009-07-23T10:30:00.009-04:00

Up until now we have been hitting new wineries. Today, we wanted to revisit some of our favorite wineries Napa. Our old friend Trefethen was worth the stop as usual. And as usual, I spent way too much time taking photos of their vineyards and grounds. Their wine was spectacular as usual. I don't know how they make so many standout wines.

We went to the fabulous Stag's Leap. Stags Leap leapt to noterity when their Cabernet won the 1976 Paris wine tasting. Their wines are indeed awesome and may inspire your own leaping. The pourer was very knowledgable about the wines and we had a very good time tasting of some of their single vineyard Cabernets. It's amazing how you can test the effect of different soils on in the final wines.

We were driving right by Robert Sinskey, so we swung into their drive and headed in. They do have a nice tasting area, complete with a koi pond. I'm a sucker for koi ponds, don't know why. The fun thing about Sinskey is that they give you a little plate of food to pair with the wines you are drinking.

The next stop on our Napa express was Duckhorn. Duckhorn provides a very classy and relaxing tasting experience. They sit you down at a table and bring the wine to you. The server gives you a spiel about the wine and leaves you a card with information about the wine as well. It also helps that their wines are world class. Their tasting room and grounds are workd class as well. We had a plesant and relaxing to stroll around the grounds before heading to the next destination.

Our next destination was a bit of the beaten path The Hess Collection is not in the Valley itself, but instead is located on one of the nearby mountains. The interesting thing about Hess is that it is not only a winery, but it is a pretty significant collection of modern art. My favorite is a typewriter that has flames shooting from it. We're taking an real typewriter and real flames. It's perfect for writing recipes and testing them at the same time. The gardens outside are a work of art onto themselves.

Dinner brought us to Brix in Yountville. We sat outside with a view of their wonderful garden. This garden is the source of many of the components of the dishes served here. The standout part of our meal was the corn and candied bacon pizza. They say that everything tastes better with pizza, and this course proved it correct.

Waiter, What Wine Goes with Heat Stroke?

2009-07-21T20:53:00.009-04:00

In normal times, Napa Valley is a little warm during the day, the evenings are cool. This is what makes the wines from the area so special. When we were there, the days were tending to blast furnace, the evenings spent huddled around the air conditioner.

Our first stop was Flora Springs on a recommendation of E's brother. It was a very modern and hip tasting room. There were very few other people in there, so we were enjoying the wines camped out in our zebra striped chairs and getting the undivided attention of one of the pourers. We were having a very good time until a literal bus full of people descended on the bar like locusts. We nearly had to jump up and down to pay for the tasting and get a bottle of their excellent Holy Smoke cabernet.

We then stopped at Charles Krug. This is the oldest winery in the valley. Its main claim to fame is that it launched the Mondavi brother's careers, and the huge fight that split the family for decades. The wines were good, but they did not get us really excited.

As a break from wine tasting, we headed to the Culinary Institute of America's Greystone campus for a demonstration class. We enjoyed a fun class showing us a really good crab cake recipe along with a summer succotash. At least we were ensconced in an air conditioned room for two hours.

Dinner saw us driving uphill to the beautiful Auberge du Soleil. This provided us with a dilemma, eat inside in the nice cool AC, or enjoy the view and roast outside. We opted for outside and the occasional dip into the wine's ice bucket made it bearable. The view was absolutely spectacular. The food was wonderful and we soon forgot how warm it was outside.

As the sun set, temperatures dropped to a more

humane level. We drove back to our hotel with content with a great day and a wonderful meal, ready for the next day in Napa.

Wine, It's Whats For Breakfast

2009-07-19T15:52:00.003-04:00

There are few, if any, places that come to mind where it is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to start drinking wine at 10 in the morning. But, when in Napa, do as Napa does.

If you have not been to Napa, then you are missing out. It is basically a

30 mile long Disney world for the wine and food crowd. You can taste wine to your heart, and wallets, content. Big mass producer wineries will gladly pour you their wares, as will small bouti

que makers. Wine not your thing? Check out the sake producer. Really more into food? How about three Thomas Keller restaurants in about 4 blocks.

Our trip this year started with the wonderful Cakebread Cellars. Really

great wines and a great tasting experience. Instead of bellying up to a bar and having the wines in rapid sucession, a guide takes you around the property with stops along the way to taste. It was a wonderful way to start this years wineathon.

We next made our way to Castello di Amarossa. The owner spent 14 years and who know

s how many million dollars to create an authentic Italian castle in Napa Valley. He even had a blacksmith make the nails by hand! The wines were not that memorable, but the tour of the castle was a must do.

Our next stop brought us to the great sparkling wine producer Schramsberg. You have to call ahead to for reservations for the tour and tasting, but it is well worth it. A quick history lesson of the property and the products lead into a tour through the cellars. If you are a wine geek, then this is pretty damn close to Nirvana! They still riddle most of

their wines by hand. Riddling is the quick turning of sparkling wine bottles to get the sediment to rest in the neck of the bottle so it can be removed. Watching the guide do a few bottles knowing that someone does thousands of bottles a day certainly makes one appreciate their bubbly more.

The day ended with a wonderful meal at Tre Vingne. We had the fresh mozzerella for an appetizer and it was superb. Coated in olive oil and herbs it tasted so good on the garlic toast. The risotto and pastas we had as mains were equally worthy of praise.

More about this trip will follow in future posts. Cheers!

Back to Basics

2009-07-10T10:11:00.008-04:00

I was staring at a huge bag of carrots, wondering what the heck to do with them. I have to use them before I jet off to California or it's off to the compost heap with them. It occurred to me to put some of that fancy culinary schoolin' to use and cook them en glace.

As I discussed in an earlier post, using the French culinary terms always makes a cooking tecnhique sound more involved than it is. We learned three basic ways to cook vegatables at the French Culinary Institute, l'Americane, l'etuve, and en glace. L'Americaine is the basic put the vegtables in salted, boiling water then shock in an ice bath. L'etuve you put the veg in a pan then partially cover with water, add salt and butter, cover with a parchment paper cover and cook until the water is evaporated. Au glace is similar to l'etuve, but sugar is added to create a sweet coating on the vegtables.

I quickly diced up a few carrots, did my kitchen origami partchment paper lid, chucked the carrots in a sauteuse with some water, butter, salt and sugar and cranked up the heat. Once the water was boling I lowered the heat to a simmer and waited for the water to evaporate. Once the water was gone, I removed the lid and let the remaining butter and sugar form a glaze on the carrots.

The final dish was a winner. The carrots were cooked through with a nice sweet coating on them. A little vanilla or some orange liqueur would have been welcome additions to this. Maybe next time, as in tonight. I still have a lot of carrots left.

Mixed Metaphor Corn

2009-07-08T19:24:00.003-04:00

As E is already in California and I'm headed there myself on Sunday I've been trying to cook using what's lying around. Today's protein was a no-brainer, I just defrosted a ribeye steak. To use up some of the produce I had lying around, I created what I call mixed metaphor corn.

Putting together corn and red bell peppers is totally Americana. Depending on how you season the dish, you can create something Northern, Southern or even Southwestern. When you start throwing shallots into the equation, things get a little muddled.

I diced the red bell pepper we had sitting around into a corn kernel sized dice. I finely diced a shallot and sauted it along with the red bell pepper in some butter until the vegetable were nearly done. I warmed up the half bag of frozen of sweet corn, then chucked it into the pan with the bell pepper and shallot.

This proved to be a surprisingly tasty combination. The shallot added a sweet, oniony undertone to the dish. The taste wasn't completely American, nor was it overtly European. The grilled steak and onion proved to be worthy additions to this dish of many colors. When choosing to cook with a fixed set of ingredients, some interesting combinations are bound to happen. Sometimes, these are very happy occasions.

On, Wisconsin

2009-07-07T20:45:00.002-04:00

My image of Wisconsin was shattered this weekend when I saw that cheese did not run in rivers throughout the state and brats did not grow on trees. The Wisconsin wine did live up to its reputation. What reputation you say? Exactly. A restaurant bending over backwards to serve us and the best frozen custard on Earth will leave a fond spot for WI in my heart.

We found ourselves in Kewaunee, WI this past weekend to attend a family wedding. The parents of the bride have a farm in this lovely community where they raise cows, chickens, and future bratwursts, I mean pigs. They do this as a side line as they both work in health care. They have an amazing house with one feature that had me green with envy, two kitchens! One upstairs for the normal everyday cooking, one downstairs for making beer and turning those pigs into tasty sausages. They put both of these kitchens into great use because the food and the beer they served was phenomenal.

Outside of the wedding we did do some exploring. There were billboards everywhere advertising wineries in the area. We stopped in two of them to check them out. The first one was right in the middle of the town of Algoma. The wine was OK, but the building it was in was fun to visit. The second one we stopped in was a total tourist trap, the beverages we tasted had very little in common with wine. They did have homemade fudge there which really helped clean the palate and rescue the stop from being a total waste.

We made our way back to Kewaunee and stopped for a frozen custard. This was the real deal, it was so smooth, rich and creamy it defied description. Of course, this was a non-descript road side joint serving up dairy nirvana. We didn't head out for a bite to eat until late that evening. This being a smallish town, they did not stay open late. We popped into the Port O'Call restaurant after they stopped serving most of their menu. They pulled out all they stops to make something for E and I to eat. This would have been enough except that the food was really good! I wish we got there a little earlier to try out more of their offerings.

While we were a little disappointed that this trip did not drip with gooey, tasty cheese, we were not disappointed with the little gems we found and the great people running those places. Just don't drink the local wine.

Beer Can Chicken

2009-07-02T10:26:00.006-04:00

Beer can chicken is one of those quintessential grilling recipes. It's certainly easy and flavorful. Just season a chicken, open up a can of beer and reduce by one third(oral consumption is recommended), jam the 1/3 empty can into the chickens nether regions and grill over indirect heat for about one hour. The grill gets the skin crispy and delicious, while the beer keep the meat moist. What's not to love?

Removing the can filled with scalding hot liquid from a scalding hot chicken is what is not to love. All the recipes fail to mention that the can welds itself to the inside of the chicken. It takes some doing to extract the can from the chicken's can and not put yourself in a burn ward.

You can gauge for yourself how popular this recipe is by the number of gadgets created to cook beer can chicken without giving yourself second degree burns. Most consist of some type of cylinder to fill with your liquid of choice. This cylinder is surrounded by a drip pan in many cases. The cylinder itself my even be coated with a non-stick surface. Memories of being locked in mortal combat with a red hot can had me opt for a non-stick model.

Last night I gave my new beer can chicken contraption a test run. I gave the chicken a good rub down with Bone Suckin' Sauce Seasoning and Rub. Yes, I know I could easily whip this up myself, but even I need a short cut every now and then. I cracked open a beer and filled up the container in the beer can chicken rig. Covered the container and plopped the chicken down on it. I must say the chicken looked kind of regal sitting on its beer filled throne as it grilled away on the Weber.

After about an hour, the chicken was done cooking and the moment of truth has come. Will this chicken freely rise from its container or did I just spend $20 for more frustration. I grabbed the chicken with a pair of tongs and gave a tug. The bird came freely away from the contraption, a chorus of angels began to sing and all was right in the world. OK, so I exaggerate. The chicken did come free without any hitch what so ever. Free from the nightmare of being sprayed with lava hot beer, the old beer can chicken will be making more appearances on the grill.

Sometimes You Just Have to Open that Wine

2009-07-01T09:56:00.004-04:00

How many of us have these bottles of wine stashed away somewhere, just waiting for the right occasion to open it? That fancy California cab aging quietly in the sock drawer, waiting, waiting.... OK, what ARE you waiting for? Sometimes you just have to open that bottle of wine.

Last night I was throwing together what was basically clean out the fridge tacos, just trying to use up the current stocks before vacation. E called over from the living room, 'Hon, let's open a nice bottle of wine tonight." I peek in the wine fridge and there staring me right in the eye is the Domaine Carneros Famous Gate Pinot Noir. Sure, it cost north of $50, but why not.

The wine did deliver the good, plenty of cherry, black berry and spice flavors. Nice plush and smooth mouth feel, a really well crafted wine. It turned a forgettable meal into something worth writing about. A mediocre Tuesday was transformed into a celebration.

My advice to you is to go find where you hid that special wine. Turn some normal weekday night into a mini holiday. Toast to just being able to toast. Celebrate old friends or knock on a neighbor's door and make a new one. Life is too short to wait for some day.

Turn, Turn, Turn

2009-06-30T17:16:00.004-04:00

Like most red blooded American men, I have the grilling gene. For many, many years I have been deprived of this primal joy. Using a grill pan or a stove top smoker does not scratch the itch of standing in front of a fire, tongs at the ready. Since buying a condo with a deck, I have been making up for lost time.

This summer's addition to the outdoor cooking arsenal has been a rotisserie attachment for my faithful Weber grill. The results so far have been wonderful. The spit roasting yields a very juicy interior and a wonderfully caramelized exterior.

Last night a small, boneless leg of leg was my latest experiment. I rubbed down the leg portion with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and herbs de Provence. I let the leg come to room temperature before spearing it on the spit and taking it for a spin. An hour in a 350 degree grill getting the run around left us with a perfectly medium rare roast. The outside was a very flavorful crust while the inside was tender and juicy. E gave it her certified lamb fanatic seal of approval. If lamb is not your thing, I've had great results with a boneless turkey breast as well.

What ever your grill preferences are, you should look into spit roasting to add a little twist to your repertoire.

What a cheesy class!

2009-06-27T11:23:00.002-04:00

But cheesy in a luscious, creamy, goat cheesy kind of way. Last night the folks from The Vermont Butter and Cheese Company taught a make your own goat cheese class at The Astor Center. I had visions of being elbow deep in curds and whey, but that was not to be. It seems that the lacto-bacteria used to make goat cheese takes it sweet old time of it, and two hours would not be enough time to create a chevre of one's own. Instead, the cheese maker Adeline Druart gave a quick demo of process using lemon juice. We then got to don latex gloves and relive our Play-Doh filled youth by rolling some fresh chevre into a log.

Some really wonderful dishes were served featuring the products from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. First, let me tell you to run out and buy some of their butter, especially if you are a baker. IT IS THAT GOOD. The melted aged goat cheese crouton was also a standout.

One of the owners, Allison Hooper, gave running commentary throughout the evening and regaled us with the history of the company. The company was pretty much started as a whim and is still going strong 25 years later.

So go ahead and seek out the products from this company, or the products of other artisan cheese makers out there. Spoiled milk has never tasted so good.

Quadrillage

2009-06-26T11:33:00.003-04:00

I just love using French cooking terms, they make things sound so much sexier and intricate. "Well I just ciseleed some onions and sauteed them in my sautoir" has a much greater air of intrigue than "I diced some onions and fried them in a skillet".

These terms do play a vital role in professional kitchens though. They act as a short cut language so that precise instructions can be communicated in a concise manner. My six month stint at the FCI has hard wired these terms in my head and I have to think to come up with the non-French term.

So, to impress your friends and neighbors at your next cook out, be sure to talk about the beautiful quadrillage you achieved on your steaks. They will ooh and ah and agree with you even though they have no idea what you mean. Quadrillage is the French term for cross-hatch grill marks. Bon Appetit!

Grilling While the Grilling is Good

2009-06-25T11:38:00.004-04:00

A funny thing happened about a month ago. While the city of Hoboken slumbered, someone up and moved it lock, stock and barrel to Seattle. It has rained cats, dogs, monkeys and the rest of the critters for the past month, putting a huge damper on grilling season.

I was glumly riding the bus home, watching yet another rain storm deluge our fair city when a miracle occurred. The sun actually came out! There it was, in all its nuclear fusion glory, lighting up the still cloudy sky. I knew I had to take advantage of this break in the weather, put down "Ark Building for Dummies" and get my grill on.

I grabbed a chicken out of the fridge and quickly mimiced Bobby Flay's recipe for butterflied chicken marinaded in lemon, thyme, and garlic. While the chicken marinaded away, I whipped up a cauliflower gratin. I quickly blanched the cauliflower, made a Bechamel sauce, and grated some cheddar. These ingredients soon found a home in a baking dish and were popped in the oven. This gave me the opportunity to get the bird on the grill.

Since the chicken was butterflied, it cooked up really quick. About 35 minutes in total yielded a perfectly cooked bird with a nicely browned skin. The cauliflower was nicely creamy and cheesy. I managed to actually get something cooked on the grill without wearing a poncho and hip boots.

Sound of One Hand Dicing

2009-06-24T10:20:00.002-04:00

A funny thought came to mind while I was dicing an onion a few days ago, nothing. That's right, completely empty head. Some of you may be thinking, "What's so new about that?", but you'd be wrong. For the time it took for me to dice that Vidalia into tiny cubes I was totally living in the moment and the noisy internal dialog was turned off. A total Zen state.

This started off the seemingly contradictory activity of thinking about not thinking. I noticed that when I am in the process of cooking, my mind does not wander off on little side trips. It stays right were it should be while I slice, dice, and make great juileanne fries. This is basically the core of Zen philosphy, living in the moment and quieting the mind. In Zen, this is taught through zazen, sitting meditation, or one of the Zen arts such as flower arranging or archery.

Zen is also famous for using seemingly unanswerable riddles, called koans, to break the mind out of its normal way of thinking. The most famous one of these is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?". I think a new koan needs to be added to the cannon. What is the sound of one hand dicing?

Rustic Fruit Desserts

2009-06-22T09:41:00.003-04:00

You can learn an amazing amount of things from a cookbook, new techniques, new ingredients, the need for reading glasses. I somehow made it 45 years without the need for vision correction, but when you read 2 tablespoons of baking powder instead of 2 teaspoons of baking powder, tis time.

I was looking forward to making a recipe from this beautiful little book since I won it as a semi-finalist in Culinate's May blogging contest(Thanks alot!). I picked out the raspberry aprioct cobbler and E ran across the street to get the fruit for the recipe. The A & P did not have apricots, so I ended up making a raspberry peach cobbler. One has to be flexible in the kitchen. I put everything together, popped it in the oven and sat down while it baked. Curious as to why so much baking powder was required, I looked at the book again(in better light). "Oh, two teaspoons of baking powder!", I laughed to myself as I got up to spy on the cobbler in the oven. I peered in, half expecting to see some huge cobbler blob filling every nook and cranny. It was kind of fluffy, but not too bad.

The timer chirped the end of the cooking time and I removed it from the oven. I was happy I was not pinned againt the wall by the cobbler ala the "I Love Lucy" episode when Lucy attempted to make home made bread. A subsequent taste taste, ok scarf down test, proved the cobbler to be pretty tasty. Looking forward to tackling more desserts from this book, after the trip to the optometrist!

The Steaks are High

2009-06-18T10:21:00.007-04:00

I did not know what to expect when I entered the James Beard House on Tuesday evening for the Kansas City Steak Feast. The chef was Charles d'Albaing from the restaurant Webster House in Kansas City, MO. Well, of course I was expecting steak, but the quality and preparation remained unknowns. I made my way to the backyard and was handed a glass of sparkling wine. Yes, I said backyard and yes the James Beard House is in downtown Manhattan, and yes I am jealous of said backyard. The sparkling wine, a Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs NV, was fabulous. This was going to be a very good evening.

I saw my friends Lee and Wendy and meandered over to join them. Their friend Deborah joined the group as we discussed the Big Apple BBQ and how awesome the sparkling wine is. Then the appetizers started appearing. From the buffalo stew served in a spoon, to the crispy pigs ear on a Johhny cake, to the short ribs and the venison with a blackberry chutney, each was tastier than the one before. We went on the try the next wine, a Grgich Hills Fume Blanc. Once again, the sommelier Kathy picked a winner. After going through a few more rounds of the appetizers, we hit the final wine. This was a Pinot Noir from Ayres in Oregon. It was another winner, especially with the venison. The cherry and other fruit flavors of the wine complemented the blackberry chutney perfectly. We were very excited to see how the dinner will unfold.

We made our way upstairs and searched for our respective tables. Soon, the first course arrived, a confit of pheasant. The first course continued the winning streak of the appetizers. The pheasant itself was very flavorful and the sides served with it were great, especially the sweet corn puree. The Alban Vineyards Viognier poured with it provided a perfect counterpoint to the dish.

The beef portion of the evening began with the next course, braised beef cheeks wrapped in fried zucchini. The fried zucchini added a nice textural contrast to the buttery soft beef cheeks. The Qupe Syrah worked very well with this plate.

We segued into a beef tenderloin with sweet potato hash, served with Dain Syrah. This paved the path for the last beef dish, a NY Strip with thumbelina carrots with a K Vintners Syrah. Both of these dishes proved that Chef d'Ablaing nows his way around a cow. The wine choices proved that sommelier Kathy has a direct line to Bacchus.

A rose sparkling wine from Gruet in New Mexico and a strawberry rhubarb crisp put the exclamation point on a excellent dinner. We made our way out of the house, everyone floating a little bit off the ground, buoyed by the joy of having just eaten a truly memorable meal.

All choked up

2009-06-16T16:37:00.005-04:00

We've fallen into a bit of a veggie rut lately. While we have been enjoying Spring's asparagus bounty, we were looking for a supplement to it. We wanted to add something new and exciting to the flora part of our dinner plate.

I was wandering through our local Whole Foods last Sunday after visiting Mom. It never fails that a trip to buy one or two items results in three bags and an empty wallet. I was perusing the selection in the produce aisle when I saw them in all their knobby glory, sunchokes. Although this North American native tuber was enjoyed by Native Americans, it does not grace many tables these days. Seeing them I recalled the time i had cooked them in one of my myriad cooking classes. I had enjoyed them but never got around to making the dish at home. With this thought in my mind, I tossed them into my market basket.

When time came to cook them, I could not find the recipe I had to cook these things. Here I am surrounded by binders loose paper bearing the logos of the CIA, ICE, The New School, etc. The only things the papers were not bearing was a recipe for these things. So faced with a food stuff I have no idea how to prepare I reach for the one tome that probably will, "The Joy of Cooking". While it may not be au courant and it certainly lacks any food porn panache, it certainly has completeness going for it. It tells you how to scramble eggs, can peaches, grill a steak and braise a bear(page 530 in the 75th anniversary edition). I looked in the index and sure enough, two recipes for sunchokes.

Since I was going to roast some potatoes anyway, I opted for the roasted sunchoke recipe. I just peeled the sunchokes, which was a little challenging due to their scraggy nature. Tossed with some olive oil, salt, pepper, a couple of bay leaves and some sprigs of thyme from the deck. I then popped them into a 425 degree oven for 45 minutes, giving them the occasional stir. When 45 minutes had elapsed, a quick stab with a paring knife proved they were ready to be served. While the sunchokes were roasting, I had quickly grilled some lamb chops on the Weber. I plated everything up and served it to E waiting for her to praise the wonderful sunchokes. Her praise consisted of her pushing the sunchokes onto my plate with her fork. Oh well, at least I really enjoyed them. They were a little sweet, a little nutty and have a slight artichokish flavor to them. I would certainly like to experiment with them some more. I'll just have to make sure to make more spuds for E on those days.

Big Apple BBQ

2009-06-15T10:19:00.021-04:00

Much like the swallows returning to Capistrano, early each June the Pitmasters return to Madison Square Park. I look forward to this event with an enthusiasm on the level of an 8 year old waiting for Santa.

As the hordes exit the subway(hordes is the only way to describe the amount of people here), they walk following their noses, sniffing the sweet smell of hard wood and pork, till they reach Madison Square Park. There they are greeted by the sight of nearly 20 elaborate barbeque cooking rigs. These things bear about as much resemblence to your backyard grill as a rubber ducky to an ocean liner, they both kind of do the same thing, just one does it on a much grander scale. They are also greeted by great throngs of people. The Big Apple BBQ attracts around 100,000 ravenous carnivores each year.

I arrived just after the 11AM opening time and got right to business. My first stop was Jim 'N' Nicks to taste their sausage and pimento cheese. The sausage was a definite hit, a charred outside crust lead to a wonderfly juicy inside. The pimento cheese rocked. They should have sold this in pint containers like ice cream. Just give me the pint and a spoon then carefully back away please.

My next stop was my perennial favorite Ed Mithcell's The Pitt. Ed always does whole hog and he always does it well. Add a classic North Carolina vinegar based sauce and you have the recipe for porcine Nirvana.

I took a break from scarfing down these wonderful offering and was just wandering around to take a few pictures. I ran into some of the folks from the AOL food page. I met these fun and knowledable foodies the night before at the Craig Claiborne celebration. When a passing shower had us looking for shelter, they deputized me as media and let me hide with them in Mike Mill's area. Mike makes some of the best barbeque there is, and you can't argue with a man that has a fountain that spouts bbq sauce!

Along with all the wonderful eats, the Big Apple BBQ also offers a full slate of cooking demos and seminars. This offer a needed respite from all the required eating. They also have live bands performing. The music certainly adds an even more festive mood to the wood smoke athmosphere.

Now, for pure theater, there was no comparison to Martins from Tennesee. They elevated the act of extracting a whole hog from a cooker into art. Weddings have the ceremonial throwing of the boquet, Martins has the tossing of a pigs foot. That's hard to top.

All too soon my day at the Big Apple BBQ was over. As I headed uptown to a friend's home, smelling of hickory and pecan, I was already dreaming of next year.

Craig Claborne

2009-06-14T14:26:00.005-04:00

One of the main driving forces in the American culinary revolution was Craig Claiborne. Unfortunately, his legacy does not seem to get the same accolades as Julia Child, James Beard, and MFK Fisher. While his contributions go mainly unsung, he fundamentally changed how food and cooking are written about.

In the long ago dark ages of gastronomy in the US, the only coverage of food was relegated to what was referred to as the "Ladies Section". The stories were mainly recipes and cooking tips, not the realm of serious journalism. Restaurant reviews were mostly seen in the society pages, more concerned with whom was eating where, than whether the food was worth eating. In 1957, this began to change when Craig Claiborne was named food editor of the NY Times.

Food started to get serious coverage in the NY Times just as the NY Times was becoming The New York Times. Craig covered Michelin both starred chefs and home cooks with the same journalistic gusto. His coverage launched the careers of many a chef. He began to review restaurants with a degree of rigor. He was one of the first, if not the first, to actually talk to the chef. A notion that was completely novel at the time.

A bit of scheduling serendipity turned last week into Craig Claiborne week in NYC. Thursday night, The New School featured a panel discussion on Craig as part of its Culinary Luminaries series. This was followed on Friday by the Southern Foodways Alliance's celebration of Craig on Friday.

The New School event was quite interesting. Noted food writers recalled their personal relationships with Claiborne as well as discussing his impact and legacy. The Southern Foodways Alliance celebration was just that, complete with Champagne and bourbon. Jacques Pepin related many stories of his long relationship with Claiborne. Others, such as noted restaurateur Zarela Martinez, talked about what a huge impact Claiborne had on her personal and professional growth. Everyone left a little teary eyed, maybe even a little tipsy, but certainly more appreciative of Craig Claiborne's legacy.