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 - 10-12 months of ripened goodness with Peau Rouge cheese -- 'Intense but not sharp, the savoury taste is balanced with fresh, fruity notes.'
- Recipe: Pan-Fried Salmon Potato Cakes.
- Thick wine bottles: a sign of class, or a new faux pas? Probably the latter. New thinner bottles are being manufactured to be more environment-friendly.
- Mad for mmmmmmmmmmmm Malbec.
Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Juice, Business, Asia, Food Oddities, Non-alcoholic, Head to Tail, Summer .jpg) A few years back, my pal Tom introduced me to the delicious, sweet taste of 'Kaba-yaki,' broiled eel served with a sweet sauce. As I'm always game to try new things, I scarfed down the piece that he offered me. As soon as I tasted it, I forgot about the fact that the meat came from a slithering, snakelike creature and began to focus on the flavor. It was tender, moist, and perfectly delicious. I was hooked. Although time, geography, and economics have kept me from regularly partaking of the delicious Kaba-yaki, I can certainly understand why it is Japan's official summer food. I can even understand, to a certain extent, why Japan Tobacco, Inc. recently came out with 'Unagi Noburi,' or 'Surging Eel,' an eel-based carbonated beverage. Made from (among other things) the head and bones of eels, the soda contains several of the vitamins that are contained in the fish. The company is marketing it as a sort of energy drink, designed to extend its drinkers' stamina. According to reports, the drink tastes more or less like Kaba-yaki. While the idea of a broiled, barbecue-y eel drink initially nauseates me a little, I have to admit that I wasn't all that hot on eel itself when I first heard about it. Given how the Kaba-yaki turned out, I may have to give the soda a try! Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Science, Health & Medical, Raising the Bar .jpg) I imagine that hospital food administration is one of the toughest, most thankless jobs in the world. While most chefs have to deal with poorly-trained waiters and difficult customers, hospital kitchens have to deal with untrained orderlies and patients who are, probably, at their worst. Chefs may have to work with ingredients that are less than ideal, but hospital kitchens have to try to make palatable, mainstream food out of relatively healthy ingredients, often in the absence of oil, salt, and other staples. If a chef gets a complaint, it might mean a poor review or a torn up check; if a hospital kitchen gets a complaint, it might mean a malpractice suit. The best hospital kitchens provide tasty, comforting food to hundreds of patients and their families. When they're thoughtful and caring, it can really show through, as in the case of the Geisinger Clinic of Danville, Pennsylvania. Their restaurants, are consistently clean, well-staffed, and cheery, with delicious, reasonably-priced offerings. Since the same kitchens supply both the patients and the hospital restaurants, the options for both are pretty impressive. On the other hand, some hospitals (I'm looking at you, Montgomery County Regional!), simply phone it in. When my friend Maggie was hospitalized and needed a high-fat diet, the kitchen sent her a bowl of stock with a quarter stick of butter floating in it. Trying hard to avoid losing her appetite, Maggie called down to the kitchen and discovered that her other option had been a bacon cheeseburger. The chef had assumed that she'd prefer oily, salty broth with a scrim of butter! Recently, Ashland Community Hospital in Oregon completely changed the way it delivers food to its patients. To begin with, it stopped the standard mealtime deliveries, opting instead for a system that allows patients to order food when they are hungry. Moreover, it ensured that they would actually get hungry by offering a wider array of foods. There isn't any data yet on the overall cost effectiveness of the new program, but patients are already raving about the choice. Moreover, as other hospital kitchens have determined that food waste is one of their largest costs, this program should probably save Ashland a lot of money. Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Cocktails, Cocktail Hour  After a week spent wandering the halls of Tales of the Cocktail this summer, sipping many finely stirred and shaken libations, I said to myself, 'These special cocktails need to be shared with the world.' So we bring you Cocktail Hour, a finer way to celebrate the end of the day with these recipes. They have either been created specifically for Tales of the Cocktail, or re-designed for a new approach on the traditional version by the top mixologists in the world. Many are being presented to the public here for the first time. Enjoy!
La Florida Cocktail1 oz Rhum Clement VSOP 1/8 oz rhum Clement Creole Shrubb 1/2 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso Vermouth 1/4 oz BOLS White Creme de cacao 1/8 oz Grenadine 1 oz fresh lime juice Shake on ice and strain. Garnish with orange peel. Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Lunch, Vegetables, Food Oddities  For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. The boxes can range from austere lacquered trays to multi-tiered Hello Kitty confections of neon pink plastic. The meals themselves are anything from rice and leftovers to elaborate themed affairs of Pikachu-shaped dumplings with sesame seed eyes and carved radish trees. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr. Today's featured bento is an impressive spa-themed box from Sakurako Kitsa. The mud-masked face of our turbaned spa lady is made from a turkey slice slathered in green-dyed mayonnaise. Her turban and robe are made from white cheese with fruit leather trim, and she wears diamond-shaped squirts of canned cheese for earrings. Wow! Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: On the Blogs, Leftovers  For years now, I've been a huge fan of the fact that there are some foods that just get better over time. I remember that as a kid, my mom's spaghetti sauce was always better the second day (and she always made enough for at least two nights worth of meals). These days, when I make ratatouille (which I've been doing on a near-weekly basis in an attempt to use us all the tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and zucchini from my farm share), I try to do it the day before I plan on serving it, so that it can mellow and get silky during the resting time. The team at YumSugar has put together a slide show of five dinners that improve with time that could be a new source of cooking inspiration. In these days, where we're all pressed for time, it's great to have a selection of meals in the arsenal that can be prepped during a spare moment and then stashed in the fridge, ready to be eaten at your convenience. What's your favorite make now, eat later dish? Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: New Products  The Cook Hook is a little gadget that lets you hang your towel anywhere you could put a portable hook. The hook works with magnets - simply stick the towel between the two magnets and then pull it out when you need it. I keep my towel draped over the stove bar. The hook in this picture is really cute, but I do have to wonder why they don't just throw the towel right over the bar directly. On the Fusion Brands site (where they sell the Cook Hook), there is also a picture of a guy with the hook in his belt loop. It might be convenient to have a towel right on me while cooking. Where do you keep your kitchen towel? Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Dessert  Petit fours have been becoming increasingly popular over the last few years. They're perfect for those of us concerned about portion control. You can satiate your sweet tooth without overindulging with the bite sized sweets. There's a certain conception that most people have of petit fours. Most of us think the treats have to be small square or round cakes with a poured fondant icing and a piped decoration on top. There's much more to it than that. Petit four translates from French as 'small oven,' which refers to the ovens after the large items had been baked. The heat in the oven was a lot lower after the bread or large cakes (in the case of the nobility) came out, so things like smaller cakes and cookies that needed lower temperatures could then be baked. In a strict sense, a petit four can be any small cookie, cake, creme puffs or tartlet. Even sugar coated nuts and fruits could be considered petit four, technically speaking. According to Larousse Gastronomique, petit fours became popular during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King himself. When we work on the small desserts for teas or buffets in my pastry kitchen, we use almond cake to make the petit four glacés. It's a very dense almond cake that we then layer with different flavors of marmalade, top with marzipan (only on the top layer), and then pour fondant over in a very thin layer (after cutting the cake into small squares of course). They're so rich it's a good thing we cut them in such bite-sized pieces. Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Fish, Trends, America, Food News .jpg) I love seafood. Growing up, my family used to spend summers on Cape Cod, and we regularly grilled swordfish, tuna, and salmon on the back porch. When I got a little older, I discovered sushi, and I recently began eating raw oysters, a delicacy that I'd avoided for years. There are some weird items, like sea cucumber and cuttlefish that still give me the heebie-jeebies, but I will try pretty much any denizen of the deep, as long as it is properly prepared and relatively fresh. As I've gotten older, though, the fish market has become like a game of Russian roulette in which the chambers are loaded with a mixture of mercury poisoning, overfishing, and guilt. As more and more warnings about pollution make the rounds, I find myself trying to decide between the great prices of farm-raised and the supposed safety of wild caught produce. Meanwhile, I also have to worry that my fish of choice is being overharvested, leading to depletion in the ocean, the end of biodiversity, and (presumably) armageddon. Given the consequences of the wrong decision, I'm more and more likely to forgo the ocean's bounty in favor of a nice, juicy hamburger. Recently, however, Stop & Shop has made it a little easier for me to navigate the rocky shoals of politically correct pescotarianism. Recognizing the danger of overfishing certain species, they've decided to stop selling shark, orange roughy, and Chilean sea bass until these species have repopulated. As the Quincy, Massachusetts-based supermarket operates 360 stores, this is a pretty impressive commitment to the environment. At the same time, it's a nice step toward making fish delicious and guilt-free! Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Farming, Trends, Food News .jpg) In spite of all the articles, all the op-ed pieces, and all the tables of comparison, I've found it remarkably easy to forget that the cost of groceries has steadily risen over the last couple of years. Part of this is the fact that I moved to New York about a year ago. Prior to the move, most of my family's food came from regional groceries and the friendly, neighborhood Wal-Mart. Moving into the Bronx, I was so stunned by food prices price of food that a few pennies here and there were pretty much irrelevant. Recently, however, I was buying a box of cereal when it struck me that the price had risen by a dollar over the last year. Given that the new price was just over $5, this translated to a 25% cost increase in one year. I was stunned. When asked about skyrocketing food prices, most pundits pin the blame on our new favorite villain: rising gas prices. While gas is partially responsible, it's worth noting that increased shipping costs haven't caused the prices of every other consumer item to soar. In truth, the biggest force driving up the cost of food has been exports; basically, European markets are filling up with cheap American foodstuffs. Over the course of 2008, Europe will have imported $110 billion worth of our produce, a 22% increase over 2007. Continue reading The REAL reason that your groceries are so expensive: You're paying for them twice! Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: On the Blogs, Feast Your Eyes  I have always been enchanted by homemade versions of brand name snack cakes. I love it when people make their own Ding Dongs, Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes. Rachel of Coconut & Lime recently posted about her very own Chocodiles, a chocolate-covered Twinkie confection. I've contemplated buying a cream canoe pan in the past and I think now I must, because cream-filled cakes? Enrobed in chocolate? Sign me up! These particular Chocodiles are extra special, because Rachael's husband made them for her 29th birthday (which was yesterday. Happy birthday, Rachel!). Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Water, On the Blogs  I think it's so strange that a tobacco company is making a supposedly breath freshening bottled water. That's what a Japanese firm is doing, though. According to Trends in Japan, Japan Tobacco has come up with this product, which is geared for men (it actually has 'for men' printed on the labeling). I guess all the cigarette smoking is causing a nation-wide masculine bad breath crisis. Hmm, I guess Japan Tobacco wants to be the solution as well as the problem. I guess this situation is not so strange after all. Do know of any other companies with problem/solution products? Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: Fish  Who wants to invite me to a wedding with this cake? Please? I want it! I admit - it might be a little more pricey than the cake you were thinking of getting, but it's healthier. Surely sticking pieces of sushi in each other's faces is more romantic than frosting. Although, if you really wanted some frosting, perhaps you could add a green wasabi frosting. I'd be OK with that. If you need some help with it, you should know that the picture came from the wedding of Jef and Jin Yoon and the cake maker has shared the recipe on her website. Now, you've got no excuses. It's sushi time! [via Baking Bites] Permalink | Email this | Comments Filed under: On the Blogs  I realize this topic may be a little more suited to Valentine's Day, but I think we should treat every day as Valentine's Day. Besides, I am a firm believer in the saying that food is love. Eric over at the Jew and the Carrot was reminiscing with his parents about the home made latkes his mother used to make for his father. This led to the question, posed to readers, of how you might show your love with food. I personally like to make my special chocolate cookies for new boyfriends, and birthday cakes for family and friends. Also, every Christmas I like to make special goody packages for close relatives that live far away. So, if food is love, how do you show your love? Permalink | Email this | Comments
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There's been a lot of talk about summer cooking on the interwebs recently. It's the end of the season and the available produce is ridiculously abundant. However, who wants to spend too much time in a hot kitchen when the outdoor mercury is also near to bursting out of the top of the thermostat?
