My article, Into the Fire, about the Italian Food Boot Camp I attended at the Culinary Institute has won the James Peterson Food Writing Passion Scholarship at this year’s Greenbrier Symposium for Professional Food Writers. Aside from the pure gratification of winning, a PDF of the original article appears on their site, photos included. Thanks to Lisa Ekus for steering me in the direction of the Symposium.
My friend Betsy came over this afternoon. We made three batches of Mozzarella and Whey Ricotta, with Organic Valley, Guida, and Mapleline milks. Afterward, I made Ziti with Ricotta and Roasted Eggplant and Pork Chops Parmesan with the Mozzarella.
The Organic Valley was the sweetest and tasted most like milk. Guida had a sharper taste that Betsy liked best. The Mapleline gave the most volume of curds, but the end yield was about the same –a softball sized piece. It was the rubberiest, but I’m marinating some to see how that works out. I want to like the Mapleline since the dairy is just down the road from me, but as of today, I’d go Organic Valley, especially for caprese or other uncooked use.
Fascinating. Fresh cheese’ll be great this summer. Sarah’s talking about cheddar and I’d love to make Camembert.
I just saw the final menu for the WGBY Wine Dinner. They did swap the first and second courses, which I think builds better, and omit the ostrich sausage. The menu appears below. Wines are not quite final.
APERITIF
Two Hands Brilliant Disguise Moscato 2006 — Barossa Valley, Australia
FIRST COURSE
Sweet Corn Cakes with an Avocado Salsa
Torbreck Woodcutter’s Semillon 2006 — Barossa Valley, Australia
Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling, 2006 — South Australia, Australia
SECOND COURSE
Curry Seared Barramundi with Black Rice, Coconut Cream
d’Arenberg The Olive Grove Chardonnay 2005 – McLaren Vale, Australia
Rutherglen Estate Red 2005 — Rutherglen, Australia
SORBET
Green Tea Sorbet on Mint Leaves
THIRD COURSE
Sausage Kabob And Marinated Lamb Kabob With Onions and Peppers
Served over Purple Mashed Potato Infused with Truffle Oil
Penfolds Prestige St Henri Shiraz 2002 — South Australia, Australia
Clarendon Hills Moritz Vineyard Syrah 2004 — South Australia, Australia
SALAD COURSE
Mediterranean Salad with Grilled Haloumi
Dendor-Patton Wisdom Old Vines Zinfandel 2005 – Mendocino, California
CHEESE COURSE
A selection of Australian cheeses
Kenwood Pinot Noir Reserve 2005 — Sonoma, California
DESSERT COURSE
Pavlova with Fresh Berries and Cream
Campbell’s Muscat – Rutherglen, Australia
Grateful Palate- Lilly Pilly Noble Blend 2002 — South Australia, Australia
COFFEE
Benjamin Tawny Port
One of the perks of writing about food is that you get invited to events as an ostensible expert. Last week, it was the WGBY Wine Dinner tasting (http://wgby.org/wine/index.html). The theme this year is Australia. I put aside questions of what exactly is Australian cuisine and how can I tell whether is authentic in favor of dinner and a chance to opine.
The Wine Dinner, which seats about 150, is set for February 28th at the Springfield Marriott this year. I join Charley Rose, Susan Lofthouse, and Marie Waechter from WGBY at the Springfield Marriott for a tasting of the dishes that will be served. I am not a wine guy and not expected to be. My role is to comment on the food and make suggestions while the wine guys do their thing. The wine guys, James Holsing, Chair of the WGBY Wine Committee and Michael Ferry, local Sales Manager for the Martignetti Companies, are enthusiastic and producers and bottlings fly back and forth.
We start with a Curry-dusted Barramundi in a coconut milk sauce. Purple rice and a sautéed baby bok choy accompany the dish. After a few bites, I wonder why they need me. There is nothing to recommend or change in this dish. Gewürztraminer seems to be the wine of choice for this and I sip the sweetest of the two whites in front of me to get a sense of the pairing. I polish off the food while the wine guys go back and forth over varietals, the Australian wine industry, and the usual happy arcana of wine aficionados everywhere.
The second course is corn cakes with an avocado-cilantro salsa. Are the cakes a little too floury? Will the cilantro be too much for the wine? Bill Rounds, the Executive Chef of the Marriott joins us after each course for our comments. Initially Rich Rueda, Event Manager Springfield Marriott takes charge of the comments, but as we loosen up, we all offer our suggestions directly to Bill. He explains his efforts to identify typical Australian dishes for the menu. There is the Asian influence as well as the European that he can work with, hence the curry, coconut and purple rice in the first course. As a chef, Bill is less of an artiste and more of a professional. This means that he actively listens to our comments and is interested in discussing alternatives and enhancements.
A Green Tea sorbet arrives after the corn cakes and a discussion ensues as to whether we’ve eaten enough to cleanse our palettes at this point. We debate changing the order of the courses so that the sorbet cleanses the taste of the curry sauce. We all like the knockout punch of the barramundi as a first course, but the order might work OK reversed. The wine guys veto the drizzle of honey on which the sorbet sits. It is too sweet and will coat the mouth and interfere with the next course’s wine. Chef agrees. Perhaps a sprig of mint to anchor it to the plate? He laughs and I cannot tell whether it was his original plan or too obvious. The mint will tie into the next course, however.
The main course arrives, a skewer of lamb kabobs crossed with a skewer of chunks of pistachio-flecked ostrich sausage. The skewers are sitting on a bed of mashed blue Peruvian potatoes. The potatoes are almost purple and my initial reaction is the scene in True Love where the mashed potatoes are dyed sky-blue to match the best men’s tuxedos. Then I remember the purple rice on the first course and think that the chef is echoing the dark purple of the wines. A big heavily-extracted red is the plan for this dish, whatever heavily-extracted means. We all love the presentation and the idea of ostrich sausage, but the actual sausage which is supplied by the Marriott’s meat purveyor is far too lean. A fatty Italian sausage would stand up to the wine better suggests Michael.
Dessert is a Pavlova, a meringue covered with whipped cream and fruit, kiwi and strawberries. Passion fruit is traditional, but out of season. The dish is sweet, the meringue a little grainy, and it is not chocolate, but it is very Australian and has to stay. The wine dinner attendees like their chocolate apparently and Susan and Charley debate offering a plate of chocolates on each table as a final course, with a Port or some botrytis Riesling perhaps.
And then the dress rehearsal is over. The menu is set. The dinner will be different, of course, with 150 attendees and the acutal wines, but I love the behind the scenes look.
I don’t buy many cookbooks these days. The receipes are all the same and the writing is very functional, with little personality. They feel like product rather than art. I don’t have any problem with someone making a living, but that doesn’t mean I have to buy them. All About Braising is different.
I recently received a copy of All About Braising. I know Molly Stevens’ work from Fine Cooking magazine and I like her style a lot. She is clear and direct and speaks to the reader with the voice of someone who knows the subject. The recipes are filled with the details that come from experience, like your older sister hanging over your shoulder showing you how she cooks. Stevens explains the technique of braising clearly and goes on to cover receipes from Asia, Europe and the Americas that range through all manner of ingredients, from vegetables to beef, lamb, pork, and poultry. If you like reading cookbooks, you’ll like this one.
I gave a copy to my daughter-in-law who has already cooked a number of Molly’s recipes. Katie has a new kitchen and, after months of microwaved food and pizza, has jumped back into cooking. She loves the book and the recipes have all turned out well for her as well as for me. This one isn’t like the Austrian self-sharpening razors–it’s worth it.
It’s Friday night on the Culinary Institute of America campus. My friend Bill and I will be taking a Tapas Boot Camp on Saturday morning, so we decided to stay over and have dinner at the Escoffier Restaurant. Bill is stuck in traffic in Waterbury, victim of messy snow showers, rush hour, and construction. The hostess and maitre d have been very gracious about moving our reservations ahead an hour, but Bill is never going to make it before the kitchen closes. “Have a good dinner for me. I’ll call you when I’m in Hyde Park,” he says, before turning off his cell phone to conserve the battery.
With the combination of grace and awkwardness that I have come to expect from the CIA restaurants, I am seated, given a menu, several wine lists, and had my drink order taken three times. Chewing on an incredibly good roll, I watch the room. Unlike many people, I enjoy eating alone. I can concentrate on the food and eavesdrop on the other tables and think my own thoughts. A low buzz of conversation, always the sign of happy eaters. A student nervously prepares Bananas Foster tableside. Six waiters assemble at a table, a silver-domed dinner plate balanced on each one’s palm, their other hand behind them. The dishes are placed on the table and, with a nod from the headwaiter, the domes are removed with a “Voila.” It is like watching a dress rehearsal rather than the play itself and I feel like a friend of the author, privileged to watch the show.
My appetizer arrives. A Fois Gras Oxtail Terrine with a Cranberry Compote. Cold foie gras is a little too much like eating butter for my tastes, but the oxtail is amazing. It is caressed by a port wine reduction I would drink by the glass. My entrée, Veal Cheeks with Mashed Potatoes is a homey, braised dish, enlivened by threads of orange zest. I get the “Voila” with my dish as well, although it loses some drama as a monologue. The accompanying vegetables—haricots verte, a few baby carrots, a slice of beet, and a baby turnip are all cooked to perfection. I chew happily, in a room fitted like the private salon of French chateau.
Bill arrives as I am finishing my cheese course. The kitchen is closed, but the chef sends out two desserts on the house while Bill finishes my cheese and a glass of wine. My meditative mood is a little shattered and the conversation I have continued with the student who has become my server falters, but it is good to see Bill. We talk as the room empties, the serving staff assuring us there is no hurry about our leaving. The bill includes a 15% gratuity which goes towards scholarships, but we leave an extra $10 by way of appreciation.
I have been writing about restaurants for a year now. I have had some good meals and good service and some disappointments, but I have not enjoyed most of those meals as much as this one. I am sure it is colored by my attitude towards the CIA, which I love as someone who has never been a student can, an outsider who sometimes takes classes here and wishes he were 26 again and choosing a profession. Some of it is that backstage feeling, where you can see the pins holding costumes together, the director calling tiny corrections to line readings. And a lot of it is the food, which reaches high, sometimes nailing it and sometimes missing, but always prepared honestly, without cynicism or (luck for them) financial compromise. How can I live here? I always wonder when I am on campus, knowing it would change if I did.
But tonight, the magic is there. Tomorrow, I will be cooking at the CIA. How cool is that.
Update: 1/31/08: See Bill’s post on the class with some nice photos of our dishes. I intended to write something, but sloth took over.
I’ve received a couple of comments on the Coffee article. Nice to know people care enough to write.
Scott Rao made the following observations:
Samuel Masinter, from Amherst College seconded the comments on the length of a pull and the temperature of the water used in the machine. He also commented that my Seattle espresso was probably a ristretto and suggested visiting coffeegeek.com. His comment, “sadly the world of coffee fanatics is, well, crazy,” is well taken. Always nice to hear from the fanatics, at least in the world of food. Thanks.
After the article was published, a friend told me I’d left out some of the best hidden markets–the Asian markets. I told him I’d already written about them, but should have mentioned them. So, here’s the link to an article about those markets, http://blog.russelnod.com/2007/06/28/asian-aisles-navigating-the-pioneer-valleys-most-plentiful-ethnic-markets/.
I’ve loved bicycling ever since I traded in my three-speed Raileigh for a nameless 5-speed sometime around 1960. I bought a Peugot U0-8 with a case-hardened chain and a padlock and rode it through college in Buffalo in and Cambridge afterward. It was transportation and I still can’t believe I used to sling a dufflebag of laundry over my shoulder and balance the end on the rear carrier and ride it through a foot of slush to the laundromat, but I did.
I tore it down and shipped it home after college and then to myself in Cambridge. I still remember the day I got the bike in its flat bike carton. I put it together and suddenly Cambridge opened up. I went everywhere on the bike, trading it in for an Austro-Daimler before I went to grad school in Amherst. I rode the Austro-Daimler from Cambrige to Amherst, then all over Amherst, Belchertown and Northampton, often in the same day, looking for apartments. It was still transportation as well as recreation and I used to ride it from Belchertown to Amherst, leave it in my office overnight and ride it home the next day.
Sometime after grad school, bicycling became cycling and cycling became exercise. I bought a car and the thought of cycling to Northampton for anything more than recreation wasn’t in the cards. I got bike clothes and a helmet. The roads were filled with slender men in what my wife dubbed rubber shorts and the Tour de France was suddenly something people actually followed. Everyone had a bike and you could engage in endless conversation about carbon steel vs. aluminium frames (the highest-end chrome-molly 531 tubing of my youth had completely disappeared).
Going cycling now became a 20-minute suit-up. I bought a mountain bike–the Macintosh of cycles–and discovered dirt roads within a mile of my home that I’d never known were there. Still had the road bike, a purple Bianci now, and if it weighed 25 pounds, my attitude was if I lost 20 pounds, the bike would be weightless. After some medical problems in 2003, I lost the energy to cycle like I did. I’d drive roads I used to cycle, remembering the feel of settling into the cadence and chewing up miles on my way home.
Now, on a four-day trip to Provincetown, we’re staying in the East End. My son-in-law and grandson both are riding now, and the first night we got on our bikes and rode to the Point at the West End, straight through the crowds in the middle of P-town. We hop on the bikes to go the store, chaining all three together. My speedometer and pump are in the room, no one is using helmets (fashion statments, I am sure), and there’s no need to change into cycling clothes. In short, I’m bicycling again, feeling the joy that comes from accelerating walking, getting where you need to go and back again in a quarter of the time. There doesn’t seem to be much theft of quick-release wheels or saddles and my bike is locked in front of my motel with the other bikes. I haven’t put on my cycling clothes or done an exercise ride since I’ve been here.
All I’ve done is ride my bicycle.
CISA, the Community Involed in Sustaining Agriculture, is a Pioneer Valley organization that works to promote the local agriculture. Its Local Hero campaign, trumpeting local farms and restaurants and markets that sell their produce is one of their more well-known projects.
Several months ago, they asked me to guest chef a party they were giving in July. I was supposed to work with another writer, but she had conflicts so they paired me with Pat Shannon, chef-owner of the Side Street Cafe in Florence. Great, I remember thinking, take a home cook whose chops are not at their peak and team up with a chef. My misgivings grew since there was as much a potential downside to my participation as an upside. As with most of my cooking misgivings, it turned out fine. Pat is a good guy–easy to work with and not egotistical–and the dinner went off pretty smoothly.
CISA got a lot of the local farms to dontate vegetables, beef, lamb, cheese, and honey. Bart’s contributed some sorbet and People’s Pint some beer.
The day of the party, I went to the restaurant and helped prep. Pat did the heavy lifting–marinating the beef and lamb, reducing the marinate, baking off the pattypan squash we intended to stuff with goat cheese, arugula and roast red peppers, deep-frying the wonton triangles for the smoked salmon apps. I did a lot of chopping and prepping, though I made some mint chutney and a blue-cheese dip he liked. During the event, he put things together while I grilled, and we teamed up on the creme brulees and baked goat cheese drizzled with reduced port wine and honey.
It was a great party and since we had food for twice the number of guests, we made up gift bags of cruditees, (separate bags of) cooked and uncooked meat, and cheese for those who lingered. It pretty much cured me of the desire to be a restaurant cook, given that it was a more or less average day for Pat.
My mother once told me I’d know when I was old because I would start reading obituaries. Honestly, I just happen on these articles altho I do read obits now. Scary when more and more of the names are (were?) younger than I am.
Anyway, I saw an article about Vincenzo Marchesi’s, the owner of Amherst’s Donatello Baker, death from liver cancer last Thursday. I bought an inordinate amount of marzipan cookies and almond horns from him. He’d always call me Signore, making me feel like the transaction was happening in a small town in Italy rather than a small town in Western Massachusetts. I bought frozen gnocci and tortellini for my freezer. For small dinner parties, I’d go in, buy five or six slices of different cakes, which we later split and fought over.
Sorry to see him go. He was a good baker and a nice man and his bakery was a good addition to the local market scene.
I didn’t know Ulysses Brown for very long. Before I took a class at the CIA this April, I had my knife sharpened. Ulysses was in the book, a mile from my house and across the street from a friend. He was a compact black man, 68, who’d been a chef in California and at Smith College until he retired. He sharpened knives and small tools and we chatted about cooking and chefs. He said he was hanging a beef tenderloin for a couple of weeks. He told me he’d call me to let me know when he was serving it.
I said Sure not really expecting anything. After a couple of weeks, he called. We went over the day after my article about the CIA came out. He’d had some dizziness so a number of the guests were helping cook the different courses. I went to work on the trifle he wanted for dessert. Aside from the beef tenderloin, there was gumbo, steamed crawfish, salads, and more. Ulysses sat in the living room as we ringed the room and ate. I mowed into the crayfish, ate a couple of beef ribs, was lucky enough to get some gumbo. Everything was good. The trifle turned out well. My wife made two more trifles over the next week, she was so taken by the idea.
Ulysses was a good guy and a good cook. I kept meaning to go back, using some sharpening as an excuse. Now I can’t. Requisat in pace, chef. I’ll miss ya.
The initial publicity campaign, especially on Food TV was extensive. The initial reviews lukewarm. My wife and I saw the movie yesterday at a rainy Saturday afternoon matinee–the best way to see a movie you’re not sure of.
The movie is completely predicable and there are no characters who step out of stereotypes and surprise you, except perhaps for Patricia Clarkson’s restaurant owner, who is completely believable. Kate is a driven chef at the top of her game, who must get in touch with her human side, though the assistance of her orphaned niece and an annoying, but ultimately loveable new sous chef. I didn’t expect much from the movie going in, but I wanted to see the cooking scenes. In that, the movie does not disappoint.
The nightly rushes, where Kate, at the pass is calling out for dishes from her battery of line cooks, saucing and plating, and sending out the food, is a joy to behold. I don’t know what it is about watching cooking in action for me, but I find it completely fascinating. Add to it the dynamics of any small business operation that depends on a talent and a skill rather than pure mental effort, and watching the food be assembled and go out is pure fun.
In my long gone youth, I studied ceramics and cooked in a local restaurant–a delicatessen and simple restaurant without much finesse. I was always a better cook than potter, and a better writer than either, so my career choice was made. Still, the love of forming things with my hands and using heat to transform raw materials into a finished product led me away from pottery and towards food. In the past three years, after a year on a medication that kept me from cooking, eating, and doing much else, I am returning to cooking as to a skill that is long atrophied. Gone are the 10 course dinner parties, with a dozen dishes. These days, it is one main course, plus some vegetables and starches (grilled meat, arugula and tomato salads, and fingerling potatoes or corn these summer days). As I interview chefs for my column, each one has the same story–bitten by the cooking bug in his teens, an apprenticeship or culinary school or both, and a life spent in the kitchen. Mine’s been spent behind a keyboard and I have the chops needed for that metier and not the professional kitchen.
I don’t see myself as ever becoming a chef–the time is past and I am too old physically for the work–I am at an age where most chefs seem to head for the executive positions. And, running a small business now, the thought of opening a restaurant fills me with dread. Still, my heart can be quickened by the sight of a saute or an onion being chopped or a sauce glossy and well-reduced. Even as I write, on an already sticky summer morning, there are 10 lbs of chicken backs, wing tips, and trimmings simmering on a hot plate in my kitchen. I’ll freeze the resulting stock in 1/2 cup portions in muffin tins, then keep them in a plastic bag in my freezer, pulling out little frozen stock pucks for sauces as I need them.
If you like these sorts of things, go see No Reservations. Or wait to rent it. It is no Eat Drink Man Woman, which had characters and a plot as good as the cooking scenes, or kitchen scenes as real as Danny Aiello’s Dinner Rush. But it has its charms and the character of the restaurant is by far one of the best characters in it.
I was leafing through Pino Luongo’s La Mia Cucina Toscana today and I was struck by how different the recipes were–different seasonings, different combinations of food. I used to read cookbooks, turn first to the recipes in newspapers, subscribe to cooking magazines. I’ve noticed that they don’t interest me that much anymore. I don’t use recipes that much these days and after a while, the recipes mostly seem the same. Who has the patience to cook 10 different versions of what’s essentially the same barbeque sauce? No, I’d rather read about different people’s experiences with food and put together their recipes from their comments.
As a fan of SF as well as SF’s 60’s era music, it was a shock to me to read John Wynham’s novel The Chrysalids. A post-atomic war apocalyptic novel concerning the rise of more highly evolved humans and their battles with the older, reactionary generation. Not unusual, especially back then, but the shock came towards the end of the book where two characters essentially quote Kantner’s Crown of Creation back and forth to each other. Hard to read without singing it to oneself. Since the book was published in 1955, I waited for an epic plagerism trial on the level of George Harrison’s “theft” of He’s So Fine. Nothing.
Thanks to generationterrorists, here are some quotes from the book:
“Your work is to survive. Neither his kind, nor his kind of thinking will survive long. They are the crown of creation, they are ambition fulfilled - they have nowhere more to go. But life is change, that is how it differs from rocks, change is its very nature.”
“They have become history without being aware of it. They are determined still that there is a final form to defend: soon they will attain the stability they strive for, in the form it is granted - a place among the fossils…”
“In loyalty to their kind they cannot tolerate our rise; in loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate their obstruction.”
Compare this to the lyrics of Crown of Creation, thanks to sing365:
You are the Crown of Creation
You are the Crown of Creation
and you’ve got no place to go.Soon you’ll attain the stability you strive for
in the only way that it’s granted
in a place among the fossils of our time.In loyalty to their kind
they cannot tolerate our minds.
In loyalty to our kind
we cannot tolerate their obstruction.Life is Change
How it differs from the rocks
I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking
New worlds to gain
My life is to survive
and be alive
for you.
Sorry Paul, it’s a great song, but you need to send some royalties to Wyndham’s heirs. Too bad Motown didn’t publish the book.
I didn’t get my article to the paper early enough, so the photographer went with a brief description of the contents. Since the piece had nothing about skewers, the photo was a little out of whack. However, skewers are probably a good way to cut down on the amount of meat you need for each person–give each person 4 or 5 chunks and you can probably use a pound for 4. I still wouldn’t put the vegetables on the same skewer–they take different times to cook. At the end, you can slide them into piles for people to pick from.
Chicken and steak skewer eating tip: when the meat cooks, it binds to the skewer. If you twist it around the skewer–with fingers or holding it in your teeth and giving a half-turn, it will come free and be a lot easier to eat.
My wife and I went to a party a couple of weekends back. Our host, a retired chef, blew out all the stops–beef tenderloin, boiled crayfish (hard to get in the part of the world), gumbo, and more. For dessert, he planned trifle. I ended up in the kitchen with a couple of helpers assembling the trifle. He used custard cups, canned cherry pie filling, fresh fruit, vanilla wafers, and pound cake. Not too much liqueur–I didn’t see all the bottles till it was nearly done. Anyway, my wife liked it so much that she’s made two more trifles in the last two weeks.
I’ve always wanted to make trifle with vanilla yoghert–it seems a low-cal alternative to custard.
Since the Zen article came out, several people have stopped me to mention their experiences. One told me that her mango chicken was served with unripe (hard and sour) mangos, but that was the only complaint. Several told me the article was right on–”better food than China” was one comment. (How good is the food in China? I’ve heard varying reports.) A bunch raved about the sushi, so much so that I’m going to have to make another trip. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
While I was at the CIA, I learned a great way to hand-cut pasta. Roll the dough out until it is a rectangle. Align with the long side facing you. Gently roll the dough towards the center and stop when you are there. Turn the dough around and repeat on the other side. It will be rolled up like a scroll. Slice the scroll into strips. When you are done, slide your knife under the roll to the center. Twist upward and lift. The strips will unroll on your knife. Pretty cool.
You’ve got your Web 2.0 review sites. You’ve got your personal recipe sites. And now you’ve got Russelnod.com. It’s my take on things, my food memories. Many of the posts will be from articles I’ve written for Northampton, Mass’s Daily Hampshire Gazette. Some of these are about markets in the Pioneer Valley–Italian, Asian, Hispanic, Russian, Polish, and more. Some of these are about local area restaurants–not reviews, but the flavor of the place and something of its story. And some are subjects mingled with memories, like blintzes, sushi, barbeque, etc.
Welcome to my world.