The Kitchen Sink

Second Name for Second Harvest

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:17:13 GMT

Poasted by Lisa Waddle

After 30 years of fighting hunger, America’s Second Harvest has changed its name to Feeding America. The good news is, there’s no change in the non-profit’s mission of providing groceries to food pantries, soup kitchens, and other emergency food agencies across the country. The name change is an attempt to raise awareness of the group’s primary motive: fighting hunger. Makes sense to me. I’ve long supported the hunger-relief charity, but thought the name Second Harvest made it sound like it just reused food from farms.

Given the current financial turbulence in the U.S., donating to charities is probably not top of mind right now. But as households of all economic strata face choices they probably never thought they’d have to (Pay the rent or buy groceries?), the work done by Feeding America is more pertinent now than ever. Go to FeedingAmerica.org to find out how you can get involved.

A Flushing Food Crawl

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:13:33 GMT

Posted by Sarah Breckenridge

Last weekend, inspired by a recent New York Times article, my friends organized a crawl of all the amazing Chinese food stalls in the Flushing section of Queens. Though we've done several neighborhood crawls before—usually focused on a particular food, like tacos or dumplings—this one had no common theme other than deliciousness.

Ground zero for the crawl was Golden Mall, at 41-28 Main Street, which housed at least five of the stalls on our list. We started with Sichuan dan dan noodles (left), spaghetti-width wheat noodles sauced with a firey chili oil, ground pork, tender pieces of bok choy, and scallions.

The Times had warned that many of the vendors didn't speak English, but luckily, we had a Chinese speaker among us--Kosin, my friend Nara's coworker. On her advice, we departed from the Times' list to try out a different vendor of hand-pulled noodles, also in the Golden Mall (I don't know the name of the stall, but it's on the second floor at the back of the building). Here we watched the owner stretch the noodles—almost like she was turning a jump rope—until they were about four feet long (below left). That long noodle was served whole in a meaty broth, together with slippery, skinny glass noodles, and savory bits of beef and lamb (below right). The texture of the hand-pulled noodles was incredible: chewy, with rough, ruffly edges, and they acted like a sponge for the broth.

Next up was another spicy noodle dish from Xi'an Small Delights, this one cold with fettucine-width chewy noodles, bean curd, and a sweet-spicy sauce (below left). This stall also sold a pocket bread stuffed with ground lamb cooked in cumin and chiles (below right). A fabulous combination, but I never would have though of these flavors as "Chinese."

My Chinese-food horizons were expanded even further at the next stop: No. 1 East, across the street from the Golden Mall. This was a real sit-down restaurant, and we came here for the spinach dumplings mentioned in the Times piece (below left), but the owner talked us into trying a few more things.

The oddest was a dish of long crullers—I'm not kidding, these were just like long-john donuts, only not sweet—which you ate by wrapping them in a fried sesame flatbread, and then dipping them in a steaming bowl of slightly sweet soy milk (above right). It was pleasant, if a bit bland—a mild respite from the spicy dishes we'd had so far.

We also tried the scallion pancakes rolled around hoisin-sauced sliced duck (below left). Mmm. Fatty...Salty... sweet. Delicious.

Next it was time for some liquid refreshment. We went to the grossly misnamed Quickly, where the line snaked out the door, for some sweet, milky iced tea with chewy black tapioca pearls (above right).

At this point, I was ready to burst, and had to head back to the burbs anyway. My friends stayed to try the "huge and refreshing" shaved ice topped with fruit and sweet red and green beans. I'll just have to put it on my list for next time. Along with the shrimp-stuffed rice crepes. And the Grilled lamb skewers. And the crab with sticky rice...

A Feast for the Eyes...Make That a Feast. Period.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:20:34 GMT

Posted by Dabney Gough

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to eat my way through Slow Food Nation in San Francisco. The first event of its kind in the US, it’s equal parts festival, conference, rally, and party - all in the name of food that is good, clean, and fair.

I attended so many different workshops and events as part of Slow Food Nation, it’s hard to choose a favorite. If pressed, though, I think I’d go with the Taste Pavilion - a “curated” collection of artisanal foods and their producers. What made it special was not just the foods themselves, but the environment in which they were displayed.

The event took place in a huge open warehouse-type space, with similar products grouped together: jams and honeys, charcuterie, coffee, and chocolate, to name a few. Each category’s display area was designed by a different architecture firm, much like a museum exhibit. Each firm was clearly inspired by the products their designs encompassed. The jam and honey area was enclosed by walls made of fruit harvesting crates, stacked up like colorful, human-sized Legos. Inside, a quilt made of beeswax panels hung on the wall. The coffee area (at right) sat under a plywood roof pocked with large holes, which evoked the shade of a coffee grove (or, as my friend suggested, being inside a giant coffee filter). Most impressively, the bread section was anchored by the mother of all food centerpieces: a giant collection of bread loaves, stacked and arranged into the shape of a snail (the “mascot” of the Slow Food organization). Try working that into your next tablescape!

But of course, the point of it all was not just to look but to taste. And did I ever. Here are just a few of the things that I tasted in a 24-hour span:

• Chocolate from five of the ten bean-to-bar producers in the US.
• Single-origin Ethiopian coffee, which smelled exactly like blueberries
• Green tomatoes pickled in a fish sauce-based brine
• Beer that’s been aged in oak casks
• Grilled Monterey sardines
• Espresso-cocoa sprouted rye bread
• Coffee-infused raw honey
• Fresh green garbanzo beans, still in the pod (at right)
• Cornbread drenched in cultured full-fat buttermilk and sorghum molasses
• Figs so ripe that the centers were a jammy liquid
• Rabbit and trotter terrine
• Lardo atop a cracker-thin pizza

This event was so special I couldn't bear to pass up anything that looked intriguing. But I have to admit, my poor liver is relieved that I'm now back to three square meals a day.

A Chocolate Conversion

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:31:20 GMT

Posted by Denise Mickelsen

I suffer from several food addictions, but chocolate has never been one of them. I’ll take a slice of sour cherry pie over a hunk of chocolate cake any day. But I know that many, many people feel otherwise, and so when I was offered the chance to attend a live demonstration of Valrhona’s new chocolates and pastry techniques, I jumped at the chance.

Philippe Givre (above left), the Pastry Chef at l’Ecole du Grand Chocolat Valrhona, and Derek Poirer (above right), the Pastry Chef for Valrhona USA, put on a fabulous show. They walked us, their rapt audience of pastry professionals and journalists, through the incredibly complicated steps of creating a Valrhona dessert. I’m talking about baba au rhum with Earl Grey tea-infused mandarin syrup, chocolate whipped ganache and a manadarin sauce. Or one of my favorites from the demo, “the Jungle,” featuring a chocolate-striped cake (meant to resemble a zebra) that’s thinly sliced and then oven-dried until crisp, topped with two kinds of whipped ganache, a red tea granite, a red tea caramel, and fried chocolate. That’s right, fried chocolate: they made a chocolate tempura-like batter, and deep-fried it. It was so cool.

All along the way, we sampled the company’s new chocolate products - a 64% Taïnori chocolate made from 100% Dominican Republic cocoa beans that had dark, rich, fruity flavors and a hint of almonds, a 66% Alpaco chocolate made from Ecuadorian beans that was almost flowery in aroma and taste (this one was beautifully paired with the baba au rhum described above)… even their new line of chocolate bonbons. Add coffee to that mix and I was fairly buzzing by the end of the four-hour demonstration. And, truth be told, I was a choco-convert.

Say Cheese

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:54:38 GMT

Posted by Denise Mickelsen

I am a lucky editor. As the FC staffer responsible for reporting on new food products and trends, I go to culinary conferences, food demonstrations, and trade shows galore to try the newest products and learn about innovative techniques. And did I mention the cheese?! One of my all-time favorite foods in the world is cheese, and luckily, there are a lot of them out there that I need to taste.

One of my top-10 cheeses is Cypress Grove Chevre’s Humboldt Fog, a creamy, tangy, soft-ripened goats’ milk cheese with a layer of vegetable ash in the middle that makes the cheese look like a layer cake, but in a good way. I have been known to eat entire wedges of this cheese by myself. Off a butter knife. It’s that delicious.

So, happy was I to find that Cypress Grove had a booth at the Fancy Food Show in NYC earlier this month. I had been walking and tasting for about 6 hours and then, there it was: my favorite cheese, beckoning to me from the Cypress Grove Chevre counter, begging to be tasted yet again. I gave in. In between mouthfuls, I also asked the kind people behind the counter if they had anything new to share.

Did they ever. Truffle Tremor (at right) is one of their newest cheeses, having made its debut just last summer. The story goes that for the company’s 25th anniversary, they wanted to try something special—a combination of their fresh, natural goats’ milk cheese with Italian black summer truffles. The cheeses were made, tasted, and spit out. Okay, not really spit out, but “it was not a happy marriage,” said Mary Keehn, the company’s owner and founder. Still, Mary had a hunch. Since they’d already made the cheeses, chock-full of expensive truffles, she figured they should let them age for a bit and give them another try.

Weeks passed. The cheeses were all but forgotten. One day, Mary reminded Bob McCall, Cypress Grove’s sales and marketing guru, to bring the cheese out for a tasting. Everyone took a bite; the room fell silent. It was incredible! Rich and earthy from the truffles, creamy with a delicious tang from the goats milk. They had created a truly tasty, sophisticated cheese that I, for one, adore. Seek their cheeses out at your local cheese or gourmet shop, or on their web site. One try and I know you’ll feel as lucky as I do.

Garden of Eatin'

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:02:35 GMT

Posted by Lisa Waddle

If you find yourself anywhere near Lake Erie this weekend, I strongly recommend you make your way to the southern shore and seek out the small town of Huron, Ohio. In this unlikeliest of settings, you’ll find on Saturday what has to be the largest concentration of cooking superpower in one spot. For its annual Food & Wine Celebration, The Chef’s Garden—a sustainable farm in Ohio that grows gourmet produce—brings dozens of chefs to its 220-acre farm campus and lets them loose. Like kids in a candy store, these chefs are allowed to create dishes from the most amazing hard-to-find produce, such as white carrots, miniature onions the size of peas, and lettuce that tastes like watermelon. Needless to say, everything is as fresh as it gets, coming directly from the farm.

I had the good fortune of attending the festival last year, and was charmed by the mixture of down-home atmosphere and top-shelf cooking talent (check out the English Pea Pot De Creme with Smoked Trout Salad, at right, by chef Kenny Gilbert). This year there’ll be demonstrations and food cooked by Michael Symon from Iron Chef, Marcel Vigneron and Lee Anne Wong of Top Chef fame, as well as dozens of other chefs from around the world, including Will Goldfarb from New York’s Dessert Studio and Timothy Maxin from The Ritz-Carlton Cleveland.

Each chef will offer a dish at dozens of tasting stations set up throughout the farm, including chilled English pea soup with English pea falafel, triple fennel kettle corn, and slow-roasted pork belly with tomato marmalade. There will also be wine tastings and a silent auction. The best part is, it’s all to raise money for Veggie U., a non-profit group that teaches children good nutrition and eating habits. More info and tickets are available on Veggie U's web site. If you go, be sure to try the corn shoots—they were my favorite discovery last year.

The Gumbo Champion

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:54:48 GMT

Posted by Lisa Waddle

Here at Fine Cooking, we pride ourselves on going to the experts—chefs, culinary instructors, cookbook authors—to explain how to make a recipe. We often search long and hard for the ultimate authority who can not only deliver a stellar recipe, but also explain why a recipe is made a certain way. And it’s always nice to see our choice of expert reaffirmed by others in the food media.

Such is the case with our recent story on gumbo. I must have talked with half a dozen restaurant chefs and cookbook authors, searching for the expert who could deliver an authentic recipe for this South Louisiana stew, and explain how to make it at home. Although many delivered delicious recipes, only culinary instructor Poppy Tooker was able to explain the how and why behind recreating this complex, comforting dish. So I wasn’t that surprised to hear that Poppy was recently ambushed by Bobby Flay for his Food Network show Throwdown. The premise for the show is that Bobby travels the country challenging the master of a particular dish (pizza, cheesecake, barbecue ribs) to a side-by-side cookoff. Bobby has a slight advantage, as he can tap all the resources of the Food Network kitchens, and he shows up unannounced to surprise his challenger, who has no chance for preparation. The episode featuring Poppy and her gumbo recipe airs tonight, and I don’t want to give away the winner. But suffice to say, if you want the best gumbo recipe out there, you don’t need to look any farther than here.

A Taste of Electricity

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:47:32 GMT

Posted by Sharon Anderson

I know. Six hours of sampling delicacies from all over the world sounds pretty glorious, right? Everyone I have told about my recent visit to the New York Fancy Food Show has asked. "Wow, where do I sign up for your job?" And I have to say, it was an incredible experience: One enormous convention center lined with row after row of specialty cheeses, chocolates, and meats as well as artisanal breads, jams, pastas, and candies. There were organic booze, gluten-free baked goods, perfumy and prickly exotic fruits, microbrewed beers, and salts of every color of the rainbow. And don't even get me started on the tea. But of all the foods that passed my lips that day, the coolest by far didn't acutally have an indentifiable "flavor."

At an unassuming little booth advertising miniature plants or "micro-vegetables," a flirtatious young French man in a chef's jacket introduced me to handful after handful of tiny sprouts. I felt like Harry Potter tentatively sampling "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans." Each little sprout looked like nothing more than a young piece of grass or clover, and yet each one carried a shockingly powerful and unexpected flavor. One little bunch of sprouts tasted exactly like spicy Dijon mustard, another just like freshly cut radishes, and another (pictured left) like oysters and cucumbers. The "Tahoon Cress" tasted just as he promised: "like the forest after the rain." It was wet, fresh, and earthy with the tiniest hint of mildew and soil—probably one of most complex tasting things I'll ever have in my mouth.

Like a good salesman, Nicolas Mazard (as he later introduced himself) saved the most incredible for last. He warned us we were in for something unbelievable as he opened a little box of yellow flowers (like the one at right), pulled off just a few petals and handed them to me. The taste—if you could even call it that—blew my mind. The only way to describe it is electric. Sechaun buttons, as these flowers are called, actually zing with the same metalic energy that pulsates over your tongue when you touch it to the end of a 9 volt battery. (Is it just me or does every 10-year-old try that?) My mouth watered, my tongue buzzed in utter confusion, and my brain just took it all in. It was a strangely pleasant sensation.

The company behind the growth and distribution of these micro-vegetables is a Dutch-based establishement called Koppert Cress. As of right now, they don't sell to home cooks. But even if you can't (or wouldn't) buy these micro-vegetables for your own use, it's worth keeping an eye out for them in restaurants across the country—you're in for a real treat.

Tomatomania

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:08:50 GMT

Posted by guest blogger Kelly Gearity

I’ve never tasted a garden-fresh tomato I didn’t like. I happily grow (and eat) the standard varieties like Better Boy, Celebrity, and Early Girl, but what really gets me going are the heirlooms. Heirloom tomatoes come in every color, shape, and size, with flavors ranging from sweet and mellow to tangy and acidic—you just have to know where to find them. And I do!

For the past three years, I have eagerly awaited the weekend in May when Tomatomania comes to nearby White Flower Farm. This annual traveling celebration of tomatoes is where I get my pick of more than 125 different heirloom and hybrid tomato seedlings.

Scott Daigre (pictured left), who runs Tomatomania, defines an heirloom tomato as one that is open pollinated and grows true from seed. This means that if you save the seeds you can grow the same variety every year. Some heirloom varieties are fairly recent, like the Jubilee (released by the Burpee Seed Co. in 1943), while others, like Brandywines (dating back to the mid-1800s), have been handed down through generations. It’s this kind of history—the story of how each variety came to be—that makes growing heirlooms so exciting.

Sharing each tomato’s story (and wacky name) is all part of the fun. Imagine planting the Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter and serving it to friends while you explain that the gentleman who bred this tomato during the Great Depression sold enough of them to pay off his mortgage. Or how about the Cherokee Purple, whose seeds were supposedly given to neighbors of John Green of Sevierville, Tennessee, by the Cherokee Indians.

And there are so many more. Some favorites at this year’s Tomatomania were the Orange Strawberry Oxheart, a beautifully colored, meaty oxheart type; the Garden Peach, a small, unique tomato with very soft fuzzy skin and mild flavor; and the Amish paste, a hearty variety perfect for canning because of its great flavor and yield.

Don’t worry if you missed the 2008 Tomatomania events. Heirloom tomato plants are becoming easier to find every year. I just discovered a nice selection of plants at my local garden center this past weekend. So give the Heirlooms a try this year. You’re not too late to grow some history!

Snails at (not for) lunch

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:57:44 GMT

Posted by Lisa Waddle

I went to a press lunch last week and found myself seated next to Erika Lesser, executive director of Slow Food USA . Talk about pressure. I was swallowing my last bite of light-as-air ricotta gnocchi when I looked over and saw Erika was only half way through her dish. Ah, a woman who walks the walk, I thought, and tried to match her pace through the upcoming courses. Not difficult, given that we were enjoying the taste sensations produced by Alain Ducasse at his newly opened restaurant in New York City’s St. Regis Hotel, Adour.

I had a pretty good excuse for eating quickly, though: I was engrossed in hearing Erika talk about the challenges facing Slow Food, a movement founded in 1986 as a reaction to the industrialization of food. (I was asking so many questions, she had little time to clean her plate.) Slow Food works to preserve artisanal food producers and biodiversity, seeking to safeguard taste and the pleasure of the table. The movement has attracted supporters from all sides of the political spectrum; both red and blue states can appreciate good food, apparently. But now, with issues of food growing and distribution taking the political forefront, Slow Food finds itself having to tread carefully to avoid alienating any of its supporters. The way the group is attempting to do so is by sticking to its mission: seeking a food system that is good, clean and fair. And Erika reiterated that taste is still the uniting force for what is largely a volunteer organization.

To see Slow Food in action, check out the first-ever Slow Food Nation gathering in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend. About 50,000 taste-lovers are expected to attend the food festival, which will include forums, workshops, and a market with hundreds of farmers and food artisans from around the country.

By the time the passionfruit-mango vacherin was served, I found myself savoring each bite, even finishing after Erika. Made me feel I earned the lapel pin Erika gave to everyone at the luncheon, featuring the Slow Food logo—a snail, appropriately enough.